


faults, even in paradise

by finding



Series: it's not living (if it's not with you) [1]
Category: The Society (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Canon Compliant, M/M, PTSD, Slow Burn, cuddling oof, grizz and allie are best friends sorry i don't make the rules, grizz character study, grizz had a shitty dad, hand fixation oops, it's a journey to SELF LOVE ok, sam is a Confident Gay, slight canon divergence (like only a little), soft grizz hours are open for business
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-05-15 18:22:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 26,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19301263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finding/pseuds/finding
Summary: Grizz shouldn’t be doing this because Sam has a soulmate somewhere, maybe even here in New Ham. Sam has someone’s words scrawled on his body, and if Grizz doesn’t stop doing this-doesn't stop touching him-he’s going to see them. Sam isn’t his. Sam doesn’t belong to him.or: Grizz doesn’t have a soulmate. He’s okay. Most of the time.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> ok this is my take on the obligatory soulmate au… this fic is mostly canon compliant with some minor changes made for the sake of the fic and a couple added scenes. it fills in a lot of what (i think) is missing from s1 about their relationship and grizz’s character (ok this is basically a big grizz character-study. if you came for fluff and good-vibes uhh you’re gonna have to work for it). i've been reading fic for like six years but never had the motivation to write one, so this is my first and i'm really excited about how it turned out! i have the whole story outlined but only the first two parts written. i'll probably come back and make revisions after i post the last two parts, but i just wanted to get it out there!!! thanks for reading!!! 
> 
> all characters are property of netflix. don’t come for me with that intellectual property infringement bitches!!

Luke and Helena are getting married. Luke tells them while they’re lying in the middle of the football field, passing a six pack around and staring at the sky.  Grizz is a little out of breath and there’s not a cloud in the sky, endless, a bright blue that feels so big it makes his chest hurt a little bit. He almost opens his mouth, quotes Thoreau,  _ Thank God men cannot fly, and lay waste to the sky as well as the earth _ , but he doesn’t. Jason and Clark are complaining about the new rounds schedule, and Luke seems distracted, nervous, tossing the football into the air in perfect, tight spirals. 

"I proposed to Helena,” Luke says, standing up and dropping the football. 

Jason and Clark both look up, propping themselves onto their elbows. A wide grin (shit-eating, Grizz would call it) spreads over Jason’s face. 

“Shit man, you really did it...” Jason laughs. “I mean, was wondering how long you were gonna wait to fu-” 

“That’s not what it’s about,” Luke says, cutting him off. “I love her. I want to be with her all the time. Fuck, I don’t know...” He runs a hand over his face. When he takes it away, his eyes are rimmed red. “I really fucking love her. And I know that it’s pre-destined or whatever, but it feels like I’d love her even without it. Like even this parallel universe shit wouldn’t be able to fuck it up..”  

There’s a pause. Clark raises his eyes and looks toward Grizz expectantly. Grizz blinks, huffs out a short laugh, and stands up to clap a hand on Luke’s back.  

“Congratulations, dude. You guys are perfect,” he says, smiling. “It’s gonna be a great wedding.” 

Luke nods, bites his tongue and shakes his head. “Yeah, I don’t know, man... I might need your help with the vows. Include some of that Jane Austen shit you talk about.” 

Grizz throws his hands up, feigning offense. “ _Pride and Prejudice_ is a masterpiece of 17th-century literature. You know, Austen was the first female author to-” 

Jason lets out a loud groan, stands up and picks up the football. “Yeah, Mr. Visser thanks for the English Lit. lesson–one fucking thing I don’t miss about Old Ham.” 

Clark nods. “Mills kicked my _ass_ with _Lord of the Flies_. Who the fuck makes an essay due Friday at midnight?” 

Jason scoffs, throws the ball to Clark who catches it reflexively. “You’re just pissed cause Gwen won’t put out if you fail his class.” 

“Man, you fucking ask for it...” Clark smiles wide, runs towards Jason, and tackles him. 

Grizz turns from the two boys and nudges Luke’s arm. “I’m really happy for you two. You deserve to be happy.” 

Luke scoffs and runs a hand through his hair, looking out towards the field (It’s a nervous tick. Grizz notices it because Grizz notices everything.) “I hope so. We all deserve a break from this shit.” He looks Grizz in the eye and speaks, his voice a little lower and softer than before, “You deserve it too, having someone like I have Helena.” 

Grizz stares at him and doesn’t blink. There’s something hard in his throat, painful and aching that he can’t swallow. He feels like he’s going to cry (because he knows how that feels – knows it so he can stop it before it happens), and if Luke notices, he doesn’t say anything. He gives Grizz one last smile and punches him in the arm. 

“C’mon,” Luke says, walking towards Jason and Clark, who are now pulling hair like freshman girls, “let’s go break this up before someone balds pre-maturely.”  

Grizz shakes his head, swallows, and gives him a small smile, one that crinkles his eyes around the edges. “Yeah, go ahead. I’ll catch up in a second, wanna finish this drink first.” 

Luke nods and jogs off. Grizz wraps his fingers tighter around the neck of the bottle, feels the warm liquid sloshing around in the bottle. If he feels a little nauseous when he knocks the beer back (something expensive and craft, taken from some elderly couple living in a big white house), Grizz doesn’t notice. A pit in his stomach, vacuous and hollow, an ache when he inhales – none of these are new to Grizz. He’s been fucked up his whole life, it’s not like it’s noteworthy now.  

 

 *   *   *

 

None of the guys are surprised, not really. Luke and Helena were always going to get married. They knew from the first day of kindergarten when Helena took her turn in front of the class and said in a small voice, “My name is Helena Liu, I’m five years old, and I like to play the piano.”  

Luke had stood up then and walked up to the front of the class. He held out his hand to Helena, all the over-confidence and charm of a boy who had watched his father shake too many hands, and ignored the admonishment of the teacher.  

“I’m Luke. I’m your soulmate.” The words sounded clumsy and practiced. His mom had told him what to say, helped him practice before his first day of school. They knew he would meet his soulmate there—it was printed neatly on his right shoulder, _My name is Helena Liu, I’m five years old, and I like to play the piano._  

So, Helena and Luke were soulmates. They said their words, were attached at the hip all through elementary school, began dating around 7th grade, and now were getting married. This was how it worked. Sure, the marriage timeline was a little sped up because of the whole new-universe-without-our-parents dilemma, but it still made _sense_ , it still fit in the system because the system didn’t make mistakes. Kid were born with their words, their soulmate said them, they fell in love, and everything was good.  

The system didn’t make mistakes, that's what Grizz had been told. He believed it too, still believes it now. There was nothing wrong with soulmarks and soulmates because it worked out for everyone he knew. There was something wrong with him. 

Grizz doesn’t have a soulmate. His parents weren’t that concerned when he was born without a mark. Sometimes they appear later on, even as late as adolescence. Grizz had heard rumors growing up about that kid Mickey, how he didn’t get his soulmark until he was 12. But now Grizz was 18 and he didn’t have a soulmark and he never would. There are no words on his body, no black calligraphy or cramped letters scratched across his back, his wrist, behind his ear. And he's okay with it most of the time. Most of time.  

 

*   *   * 

 

There’s writing on the wall of the church. Luke notices it first, asks, “What’s that?”  

Jason makes an offhanded quip about graffiti, but Grizz moves closer. “It’s writing on the wall,” he says, tracing a finger against a line of dried paint dripping from the letter _n._ He drops his finger. “From the Bible, the book of Daniel? _Mene_ _mene_ _tekel_ _uphar_ _si_ _n.”_  

Clark’s eyebrows draw together. “Why do you always know shit I don’t know?”  

Jason rolls his eyes, takes another drag from his joint. “It’s nonsense.” 

“It’s Hebrew,” Grizz says, “means, _You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.”_  

Clark scoffs and retorts, “Nah, it means someone was fucking high last night.” He laughs and brushes past Grizz towards the bus, Jason quick to stumble after him.  

Grizz stares at paint, lifts a finger to touch the paint again, then thinks better of it. Maybe it’s just drug-induced graffiti or some thinly-veiled prophecy for the whole fucking town. It feels like it was written just for him, though. Like someone got him under a microscope, saw his empty skin, and jotted the phrase in observation. _Found wanting_ , unfulfilled, incomplete, half-finished.  

It’s a Saturday morning at 9:00 am, and Griz really shouldn’t be thinking about shit like this right now. He slings his bag over his shoulder and follows his friends. He has all the fucking time in the world to contemplate philosophical shit, preferably when there isn’t a bus full of people waiting for him. 

 

*   *   * 

 

Grizz tells them that there’s an explanation for everything.  

“The more bizarre a thing seems, the less mysterious it is... Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?” he offers.  

Clark shakes his head and looks out towards the trees passing by as Harry drives them to the edge of town. 

“You know this shit?” Clark asks, hitting Luke on the shoulder where he sits up front with Harry. 

Luke scoffs, “No. 

Clark laughs, and Grizz tries again, threading the fingers of his left hand through his hair and pushing it back pointlessly. It’s fucking windy in Harry’s convertible. “The point is, there’s an explanation for everything.” 

Clark looks confused. “What does this have to do with this Boyle dude?” 

“It’s Doyle, and you’re hopeless,” Grizz laughs, but there’s something sharp to its edge. He knows that no one really listens when he starts talking about books or philosophers or whatever he read in the copy of WSJ he took from the Starbucks. He’s used to it by now.  

He plays football and he can make people laugh and he’s smart, sure, but it’s just something that makes him a little odd. Like how Clark can bend his thumbs all the way to back to his wrist or Erika likes astrology. It’s not like anyone looks at Grizz and thinks, _Oh, yeah, he’s going places, he’s someone._  

Grizz tells the guys that there is an explanation for everything, but he’s not sure he really believes it. He thinks there’s a reason that all their parents are gone – there’s gotta be some Orwellian,  _Twilight Zone_ explanation. People have to _be_ somewhere. An object can’t exist one second and then just disappear. Grizz hopes, wonders sometimes, if the same logic works in reverse – if conservation of mass can go backward, make something appear out of nowhere, make ink appear on his skin by some miracle of biology and physics. Grizz thinks Lavoisier would probably slap him upside the head if he heard him think that.  

 

*   *   * 

 

Emily is the first person to die in the new world. A snake bites her and she has an allergic reaction and Grizz can feel it like the bottom drops of out his stomach because he can’t do a fucking thing. Grizz has felt out of place before, like he doesn’t belong, but he’s never felt this fucking alone, this helpless.  

Maybe that’s when it really hits him – that they're stuck here and there’s no one to help them and they can play mayor and explorer all they want but someone fucking died today and there’s nothing they can do because they’re kids and he has this innate feeling, heavy and hot like blood in his stomach, that no one is coming to save them.  

 

*   *   * 

 

Grizz knows that Sam Eliot is gay. He knows it in the same way that he knows Sam Eliot is deaf. He didn’t announce it in the school cafeteria or get outed at Homecoming like some CW drama. Everyone just kind of knew it, like it’s a fact of life rather than something that needs to be declared. Sam Eliot is deaf and gay in the same way that Grizz is a football player and is straight, right?  

Grizz thinks that he would probably know Sam was gay even if no one else knew. Grizz knows this because he watches people. He sees things about them that he thinks they probably don’t know about themselves. He’s watching them now, as Luke places Emily’s body at the front of the church. He sees the fear in Elle’s eyes, watches as she wraps her arms around herself like some version of an embrace. He notices how Cassandra’s face has gone completely blank; she looks statuesque, a prophecy on her lips that no one wants to hear. He glances at Sam’s sweatshirt, probably from some overpriced outlet mall and blue as the fucking sky, and how the sleeves are too long, his fingers gripped tightly on the edges.  

Grizz’s cheeks are wet, the strap of his hat is digging into his neck, pulling like a dead weight, and his hands are shaking. He chokes out a few words, asks for help burying Emily’s body.  

“There’s nothing out there, guys,” Luke says. “Just a whole bunch of woods... go on forever. We’re all alone. This isn’t our home.”  

Sam is the closest one to Emily’s body. He strokes a hand across her shoulder, quick and light. It seems reverent, gentle in a way that makes Grizz’s stomach ache. Sam signs something, brings his hand up to his mouth and then lowers it in a soft arc. Becca and Elle step up to do likewise, and Sam moves past Grizz in the direction of the church exit. He feels the fabric of Sam’s sweatshirt brush against his own clothed shoulder and freezes, paralyzed by something terrifying and hot and shameful. He doesn’t turn his head when he hears Sam and his brother begin to speak in quick, low tones that only mean one thing. Grizz doesn’t turn around, stares instead at the pale skin of Emily’s exposed throat. A girl just _died_ and all Grizz can think about is sex and he wants to go back into the woods and get lost so he can’t fuck this up too.  

 

*   *   * 

 

When Grizz thinks back to the way he’s grown up, the way he’s been touched, it’s not exactly something that makes him feel good.  

His father liked to see him afraid, liked to take every opportunity he could to remind him he was a fuck-up. Grizz’s father didn’t get out a belt or smash bottles, but he knew how to use his frame (six feet, hands like fucking catcher's mitts) to intimidate. Grizz remembers his father grabbing him by the back of his neck, digging his hands into his shoulders, fingers tightening in his hair just enough to makes his eyes water, reminding him that he was _soft,_ that he wasn’t a _real fucking man... No, real men don’t wear their hair like fucking girls. Real men don’t dance or like to read Jane Eyre and they have fucking soul marks before they’re eighteen years old. Can’t do one fucking thing right._  

His mom was the one who wanted him to join the football team. She wanted to placate his father, show him that Grizz could make friends with the other boys. Grizz was fucking good at it, too. He was the fastest sprinter in the sixth grade, and he could throw a ball pretty damn well. The first time he tackled someone, pinned them under his weight and felt their breath short out, he thought, irrational and terrified, that he had killed them. He staggered into the bathroom, threw up in the toilet, and stayed in the stall until he knew all the other boys had left.  

Grizz turned the shower on, stripped off his clothes, and stepped under the stream of water. He doesn’t remember now how long he stood there, hands shaking and eyes closed, before he heard someone speak. 

“You don’t have a soul mark,” the boy said. It was quiet, an observation rather than an accusation.  

Grizz’s breath caught in his throat, but he exhaled, opened his eyes. His fingers curled into fists, and he turned around. “What are you gonna do?” Grizz asked, too fucking tired to be scared. “You gonna tell the whole class?”  

The boy’s eyebrows drew together. “No, I wouldn’t -- I don’t want to...” he trailed off and then steeled himself. “No. I’m not going to tell anyone.” 

Grizz looked him in the eye. “Okay,” Grizz said. “Okay.” 

The boy nodded, self-assured. “I’m Luke,” he said, holding out his hand before letting out a small laugh and retracting it. “Sorry, probably weird to shake your hand while you’re naked.”  

Grizz smiled, small and tentative. “My name is Gareth, but people call me Grizz. Well, not really people, just some of the kids in science class but Gareth isn’t really a name that-” 

Luke cut his rambling off. “It's nice to meet you, Grizz,” he said, walking towards the doors and smiling. “I'll see you tomorrow at practice.” 

 

*   *   * 

 

Grizz goes with Kelly to the hotel to see where they’re going to hold the prom. 

“So, _Out of This World_?” he says, eyebrows raised in mock wonder. “How did they know?”  

While Kelly and Olivia talk about snacks they can make without jeopardizing rations, Grizz surveys the dark blue tablecloths, the silver confetti, the space-themed props for the photo booth. He picks up an alien mask, places it over his face, and looks around. The round plastic over the eyes distorts his vision, warping the room so it seems like it’s peeling away at the edges. Like it’s unraveling.  

 

*   *   * 

 

Grizz shows up to the prom wearing a bright green button-up and sweatpants. He dances with a girl named Jessica who is blonde and tall and wearing a gold dress that even Grizz (with his limited knowledge of fashion) knows is expensive. He feels good, really. He might have swiped a bottle of Peach Moscato from the cafeteria and pre-gamed a little more than normal for a school dance, but he's fine, _really_.  

Grizz spins Jess around, and she laughs, perfectly curled hair flying around her face. She’s trying to show him how she used to dance with her dad in the kitchen when Bean changes the song. Frank Sinatra begins crooning, and Jess looks up at him and quirks an eyebrow.  

“You wanna dance?” she asks. 

Grizz doesn’t, but he nods anyway. “Yeah, I’ll just-” he murmurs and places a hand awkwardly on her waist.  

Jess laughs. “You’re not gonna break me. C’mon, put your hands here,” she places his hands firmly on her waist, “and I will-” 

She winds her arms around his neck, suddenly so close, looking up at him. She smiles, and a curl falls into her face. She blows at it inexpertly and laughs.  

“Here, let me-” he says, reflexively taking the piece of hair and tucking it behind her ear. “I know how annoying it can be. Ya know, with the...” he gestures vaguely around his hair, which he doubts will get cut anytime soon, seeing as all the barbers have vanished. 

“Thanks,” Jess says, a softness in her eyes that makes Grizz nervous. She tentatively lowers her head onto his shoulder, and he can feel her cheek against his neck, can smell her perfume, and for a second he feels like this is exactly right and maybe he can finally just be fucking normal for one night. _She’s pretty,_ he thinks _, this is good._  

      _Hey_ _drink up all you people_    
_Order anything you see_    
_And have fun_ _you_ _happy people_    
_The laugh and the drinks on me._  

He's listening to the lyrics (because Grizz is a walking Shazam app) and swaying with Jess when he looks up and sees Sam. He’s not doing anything out of the ordinary, just talking to Becca, their hands moving in a whirlwind of motion and the occasional mouthing of words. Grizz watches as Sam laughs and throws his head back, bares his neck. He can feel his palms start to sweat where they’re placed on the sequins on Jess’ hips. Suddenly, the press of Jess’ cheek again his shoulder _burns_ , makes him feel nauseous. The smell of her perfume is overwhelming, and he chokes as he inhales.  

Sam chooses that moment to look up and survey the room. His gaze passes over Grizz but then returns. He cocks his head to the side, green eyes locking onto him. Grizz thinks (without any real reason), _He knows._ The music is swelling and his grip is loosening on Jess’ waist and Sam Eliot is looking at him like he’s a fucking puzzle that he wants to solve. 

 _Try to think that love's not around_    
_Still it's uncomfortably near._    
_My poor old heart_ _ain't_ _gaining any ground_    
_Because my angel eyes_ _ain't_ _here_  

Grizz rips his gaze away from Sam’s, and blinks, dazed.  

“You okay?” Jess asks, lifting her head and peering up at him.  

Grizz shakes his head and coughs. “Oh yeah, just...” he falters. “Just need a drink.”  

Her brow furrows (probably noting how strong the smell of alcohol on his breath already is), but she unwinds her arms from his neck and takes a step backward. She says something about wanting to find her friends anyways, but Grizz is already stumbling towards the refreshment table.  

 

*   *   * 

 

Grizz knows that if he had a soulmate, it would be a boy. Grizz has known this since he was fourteen, and they played seven-minutes-in-heaven at Harry’s house. Grizz still existed on the perimeter then, and he was only at the party because Luke vouched for him. They blindfolded Grizz and pushed him into the closet, told him to wait until they picked the next person. He was supposed to guess who it was.  

When the person stumbled into the closet, Grizz knew immediately something was off. Grizz knew how fourteen boys smelled, distinctly heady and un-feminine. The boy had placed his hands on Grizz’s shoulders and kissed him, quick and unsure. A wave of heat rushed over Grizz, a mixture of shame and anger, because no one was _supposed to know_. No one was supposed to take that from him.  

He pushed his way out of the closet, ripped off the blindfold. A group of people was lounging in a semi-circle on the floor. They looked up at him expectantly. This was a test, and he didn’t want to fucking fail.  

“Man, the way it stunk in there... must’ve been Kelly, right?” 

Kelly laughed, leaning into Harry’s side. “Screw you, Grizz.” 

Harry scoffed and stood up. Grizz stiffened, waiting for whatever torment Harry conjured. Kelly must’ve seen the look on his face because she grabbed Harry’s hand and pulled him back around to face her. 

“Hey, you were going to show me that new necklace that your dad bought for your mom, right?” Kelly asked, running a hand up his arm. 

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Right,” he said, drawing out the word. “C’mon, I’ll take you upstairs.”  

Once Kelly and Harry left, Grizz stalked towards the bathroom. He didn’t look back to see who had exited the closet after him. Didn’t make any fucking difference anyway.  

 

*   *   * 

 

Grizz walks to the punch table, and Allie is already standing there, watching the room.  

“This is going really well!” she shouts over the music (which has now changed from 50’s swing to something a little too Woodstock for his taste). 

“Yeah!” he shouts back. “I mean, some people are _really_ enjoying it.” He gestures to the center of the dance floor where Jason is swinging his hips obscenely at passing girls.  

Allie laughs, and for one second she looks so fucking young. He thinks that maybe this is one second of grace, where she doesn’t have to think about counting food or what  Cassandra may be doing or how any of this reflects on her. Her eyes are crinkling around the edges and her smile looks soft and she seems genuinely happy and Grizz wonders if he ever looks like that too. Because Allie has lost so fucking much and came out on the other side, and Grizz knows it’s different because maybe you can’t lose something you never had but this — this soulmate thing — feels like it was taken from him anyway. 

“Allie, I wanted to say-” Grizz starts. 

“Becca!” Allie’s eyes meet the brunette’s, and she spins towards Grizz. “Sorry, one second. I _really_ need to talk to Becca about this, uh, thing Cassandra wants to do and... I’ll explain it later. Becca, come here!”  

Grizz turns to the table and starts to pour a drink while Becca and Allie talk in quiet tones next to him. He’s reminded, then, of how much he already had to drink because the cup is trembling slightly in his left hand and some of it spills onto the tablecloth. 

“Fuck,” he mutters. He untucks his shirt, uses the seam at the corner to wipe off his hand. He hates this fucking shirt anyways. It’s not like he _wanted_ to wear a tux with a tie and a flower pinned on the lapel. If he did that it would mean he was serious, that this night meant something, and it can’t. He wears sunglasses and sweatpants and he doesn’t dance at slow songs because that’s what people who have soulmates do. Grizz can be funny and drunk and he can quote old books, but there are some things he can’t be. He’s okay with it, most of the time.  

“Becca,” Grizz says, not looking up from where his hand is fisted in the bottom of his shirt. 

Becca turns away from Allie. “Mmm?” she hums, distractedly.  

“Uhm, I just wanted to, uh,” he swallows, “to say, uh... you look really nice tonight.” His voice falters, finishing lamely. 

She raises her eyebrows and smirks. “Thank you?” 

Allie purses her lips. “He’s drunk, don’t worry about him.” She turns to Grizz, and speaks slowly, “Are you okay? Where’s your date anyways?” She looks around quizzically before her gaze lands on Jess whose lips are shamelessly close to Harry’s Adam's-apple. She huffs out a laugh. “Right, never mind.” 

“Did you come with Sam?” Grizz blurts out, gesturing towards Becca. _What the fuck,_ he thinks, _What the_ actual fuck _do you think you’re doing._  

Becca laughs. “Yeah, I guess. I mean, it’s not like he asked me or anything, but he didn’t really have to.” 

Grizz’s throat constricts and, _God, really, get ahold of yourself_ _man_ _._ “Yeah, right, cool,” he says. “Does he like... like stuff like this? Prom and dances, I mean.”  

Becca’s eyebrows rise even higher (if that’s possible, given how fucking stupid Grizz sounds right now). “I’m not sure,” she answers skeptically. “Maybe if you’re so interested, you should talk to him yourself.”  

“Nah, I-” Grizz starts. 

“I think it’s a great idea! C’mon, let’s go!” Allie interrupts, very conspicuously getting Grizz to leave so she can actually do her job. “Talking to new people is fun! Bye Grizz!” She steers Grizz away from the table and gives a gentle shove towards the table Sam is sat at a table with a few other people. 

Grizz pulls out a chair, sits down, braces his hands on his thighs, and nods to Sam, a tight-lipped smile probably betraying how much he doesn’t ( _does_ ) want to be there.  

Sam signs something, raises his right hand to his forehead and then brings it away, like a salute. Grizz’s heart is beating too fucking fast. Sam can probably tell because he lets out an uneven breath (he’s laughing, Grizz thinks) and then smiles. 

“How do you like prom?” Sam says, throaty and a little slurred. Like how Grizz’s voice sounds right when he wakes up.  

“What?” Grizz says, not so much because he couldn’t understand Sam but because he’s a fucking idiot and it’s the only intelligible word that comes to mind. 

“I’m sorry,” Sam says, simultaneously signing with his hands. “I don’t speak very well. How do you like prom?” 

 _Fuck, fuck, fucking shit,_ Grizz thinks. He’s fifteen seconds into this conversation and has already insulted him. “Oh, no, no, you speak fine!” Grizz says if a bit forcefully. He raises his hand in emphasis and then lowers them. It feels aggressive, unwelcome. Grizz isn’t good at using his hands, hasn’t ever really used them to speak or be kind. Mostly he lets them swing by his side or buries them in the pocket of his hoodie. Better do that than risk fucking up. “It’s--the music, it’s really loud,” he says. 

Sam looks at him dubiously. “Okay,” he responds, averting his eyes and nodding.  

Grizz opens his mouth to speak, then closes it. He leans back in his chair, feigning nonchalance, then signs the only word he knows. 

Sam looks at him, face completely blank. Grizz starts to think that coming to prom was a really, _really,_ massively bad idea. Then Sam’s face breaks into a smile, and Grizz exhales. 

“What?” Sam mouths inaudibly.  

Grizz laughs, unsteady. “It’s the only sign that I know.”  

Sam smiles and nods, but he doesn’t move to respond. Grizz scratches the back of his neck nervously. He shifts in his chair, moves closer to Sam, thinks he can see something in Sam’s eyes flare up for half a second. _Oh,_ Grizz thinks, _okay_ . Grizz feels dizzy, a little drunk on the conversation, on milking small smiles and breaths of laughter out of Sam. _I want to make him laugh,_ Grizz thinks, and then, _Shit. I want to make him_ laugh _._  

Grizz leans forward. “Hey, do you think you could teach me something else?” Is this how people flirt? Grizz doesn’t really know.  

Sam raises his eyebrow then shrugs, like he’s saying, _Fuck it._ He lazily signs a phrase with his right hand, then places it on his knee.  

“What does that mean?” Grizz asks, following the movement of Sam’s hand. _Hands shouldn’t look this obscene, right?_ he thinks, because the way Sam flicks his fingers out, curls them into a loose fist, lets them fall against his thigh, it’s doing strange things to Grizz’s breathing.  

“I hated high school,” Sam says quietly. It’s not a sad thing to say, not really, but Grizz offers a small nod in agreement and smiles. _Me too,_ he thinks, _God, me too._  

Grizz thinks that if Sam asked, he would probably tell him every single reason why he hates high school, right here right now. Grizz thinks he might do anything to get Sam to listen to him. _Which is ludicrous, by the way,_ he thinks. _Five minutes into talking and you’re acting like he’s your goddamn soulmate._ And he isn’t, Grizz reminds himself. Sam isn’t his soulmate. Sam is someone he can talk to and flirt with and pass the time, but he can’t think about touching him or kissing him or, God, _wanting_ him because Sam isn’t his. Grizz doesn’t have a soulmate, and it’s probably in his best interest to remember that.  

 

*   *   * 

 

Cassandra dies on prom night. It’s a fucking cliché, and his stomach aches thinking about the unfairness of it.  

Grizz sits two rows behind Sam and pointedly doesn’t look at him. Because when he looks at Sam he’s flooded with this vast, hot emotion, like standing in front of a fire while the wind blows, that he can’t name (That’s a lie. Grizz can name it. He’s read about this before, has seen it in his friends).  

It’s a fucking funeral, and Grizz needs to put Cassandra’s body in a hole he dug in the dirt this morning. The ground was hard and cold when the Guard went to dig, an indication that winter is coming faster than any of them are ready for. People talk a lot about bodies decaying inside the earth, about worms and beetles and skin turning to dirt, but Grizz thinks of how Cassandra’s body is going to freeze when they bury her. She’s going to freeze and be paralyzed there for the whole winter, listening to them fucking everything up in her absence. He thinks that that’s worse, that she deserves better.  

A few days later, the guys get together in the kitchen and do a really, really shitty job of trying to explain to Allie how they need to reestablish order. She stares at them blankly, because, honestly, what did they expect from her, and then goes straight upstairs. Grizz sits at the table for a few seconds, then pulls the hood of his sweatshirt up and follows her.  

He raps on the door with his knuckles.  

“What?” Allie says, muffled by the wood of the door. 

Grizz opens the door and sees Allie sitting at her desk, back to him with her palms over her eyes. 

“I, uh, got you some chamomile,” he says, placing the mug gently on the desk. “Hope that’s okay.”  

“Thank you,” she says, but she doesn’t look at him. It’s okay. Grizz knows why she doesn’t, knows what it’s like to have something stolen from you. 

There’s a pause, and he awkwardly shuffles some papers around the desk. Grizz sighs and pulls a piece of paper from his pocket. He holds it out, and Allie just looks at it. 

“What’s that?” 

“That is something I read once... that, uhm, really stuck with me,” he says.  

She grasps it loosely between her fingers but doesn’t move to open it. She’s looking at him quizzically like she’s noticing something for the first time. It’s not judgmental or cold, just confused. It makes him nervous anyways. He can’t imagine her opening the note right now and reading it while he watches, so he nods once and leaves the room.  

He stands outside her room, his back resting on the door. He thinks about Aeschylus, how he was told by a god to write tragedies and called to fight in a war he didn’t really believe in, a war that killed his brother. Sometimes it scares Grizz to see that people have already lived the exact same lives as them, suffered the exact same tragedies thousands of years ago. The world doesn’t change, not really. It’s the same body, different clothes. Sometimes it comforts him, though, to know that they’re not alone in this. Because when you find someone who has suffered or triumphed or even felt the same thing then maybe you can put a label on it, can begin to understand it.  

So far, Grizz hasn’t read of anyone in history who was born without a soul mark. Maybe he’s the first one.  

Maybe he’s supposed to write the first story. 

 

*   *   * 

 

Sam tells them about Campbell. Grizz watches Sam’s hands as Becca translates for everyone sitting in the living room. Sam tells them that his brother is a psychopath, and Grizz finally understands that Sam is a real person. 

Maybe that’s not the right way to put it. Grizz feels like something switches in his brain, that he realizes he knows nothing about the person sitting five feet away from him. _Do I contradict myself?_ his mind supplies, _Very_ _well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes._ Sam is deaf and he’s gay, sure, but he also had parents and a brother who he was ( _is_ ) terrified of. Grizz doesn’t know what classes he liked in school, if he drinks coffee in the morning, if he has ever seen the ocean, if he’s kissed anyone before. He’s scared that if he likes the idea of Sam this much, the reality of him would be so much fucking harder to recover from.  

"Fuck,” Grizz says aloud.  

Sam looks at him. “You have to understand,” he says, speaking now, voice shaking. “He doesn’t think like we do, doesn’t _feel_ like we do.” 

Grizz’s blood runs colds, he can feel it hardening in his veins. He feels so afraid, so fucking unsafe, and they’re the ones who are supposed to be protecting people and Grizz doesn’t know if he can do that. He doesn’t even know how to fucking protect himself. He doesn’t want to be responsible for that because all of the people in this room are going to get hurt, Sam’s going to get hurt, eventually. The weight of it, of that responsibility, presses down on his lungs, and he can’t fucking breath. Sam is still looking at him, he’s crying, and Grizz can’t fucking do this. He stands up and walks, automatic, out of the room. 

“Grizz,” he hears Luke start to speak and there’s a rustling, like someone leveraging themselves off the couch. 

“Stop, let him go,” he hears Allie say, hard and final. “Just let him fucking go, goddamit.” 

The light isn’t on in the hallway, and Grizz crouches down, bows his head to his knees and breathes. No one is talking now, and the silence feels thick, something physical around him. He feels like he’s eight years old again. He’s shaking and there is a vacuum inside of him and he wants his mom.  

He hears footsteps come from the living room, muffled on the carpet, and they stop in front of him. 

“Don’t,” he says, sharply, not looking up, fingers buried in his hair. “Don’t fucking—Luke, I really, just, please—” 

“I’m sorry,” Sam says, and Grizz knows it’s Sam, knows the sound of his voice, thick and soft. “I’m sorry,” he says again. 

Grizz doesn’t move, can’t move, just presses his eyes into the curve of his knees. Sam doesn’t seem to notice. 

“When I was a kid, I cried a lot,” Sam says. “Campbell never cried. It was one of the things that scared my parents. Once we went sledding, and we veered off, hit a tree. I dislocated my shoulder. I screamed a lot. Campbell’s cheek was cut open, he sliced it on the edge of the sled. There was so much blood, but he just stood up, grabbed the sled, and started to walk back up the hill.” 

Grizz lifts his head, peers at Sam who was sitting against the wall in front of him. “Is this story supposed to make me feel better?”  

Sam huffs out a laugh. “Yeah, just wait okay.” Grizz nods, lets himself slide down the wall until he is sitting too. He tips his head back, stares at the seam where the ceiling and wall meet. “When I cried, my mom would sing to me. I couldn’t hear her, but I think it made her feel better. I would sit in her lap and put my head on her shoulder, and she would put her lips right up next to my ear. I could feel her breath and —” Sam’s voice falters for a moment, “and I could feel the vibration of her voice. She always smelled like vanilla. I miss her a lot.”  

Grizz lowers his head and looks at Sam, holds his gaze. Sam swallows. 

“She was the first person I told that I liked boys,” Sam smiles like he’s remembering something secret and good. 

“You don’t have to tell me about it,” Grizz says. “I’m— I’m okay. Don’t feel like you need to—” 

“I know,” Sam says confidently and starts again, ignoring Grizz’s interruption. “She definitely knew before I told her. I was thirteen when I came out to her. I told her the first time I kissed someone too.” Grizz inhales, sharply, against his will. “I was at a party at Harry’s house, and some of the guys thought it would be funny to—” 

 Stop,” Grizz says. “Please.” 

Sam levels his gaze. Whatever ease and calm Grizz felt disappears, replaced by this heavy, electric _thing_ between them. They stare at each other, and _Of_ _fucking course it was Sam, of course it was._ Because this is fate, the thread spun, the coin landing on heads 92 times in a row. Grizz is starting to believe that chance doesn’t exist anymore.   

Sam tilts his head to the side like he’s sizing Grizz up. “Okay,” he says, slowly, and nods. “That’s okay. There’s time.”  

Before Grizz has a chance to respond, Sam smiles, stands up, and walks back towards the living room.  

 _What the fuck am I supposed to do with that,_ Grizz thinks and closes his eyes. 


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello everyone! thank you so much for your response for this fic!! your comments and kudos mean the world to me honestly. i'm going on vacation for the next ten days so here’s an update before that! i changed the timeline of the show a little bit for this chapter... grizz’s conversation with allie technically happens right after the execution but uhhhh we needed some sam and grizz time before that.... sis, they’re gonna cuddle in this chapter oof. i wanted to get to the kiss scene in this chapter but i've been really busy. i'm going to try to write while on vacation, but ya'll might have to wait :)

Grizz and Allie are sitting on the front porch drinking coffee. Well, Allie is having black tea, but it’s so caffeinated that Grizz thinks it might as well be coffee. They’re sitting on the front porch, and it feels ridiculously mundane. Grizz thinks this might be his new normal: looking out at the street, no cars passing, talking about philosophy with a girl he barely knew before. (To Grizz, everything is sorted into _Before_ and _After_. It’s how he makes sense of it.) 

“I think I’m afraid to fall asleep,” Allie says, looking up at him. She’s wearing a soft ivory cardigan (he thinks it’s Cassandra’s) and her hair is pulled back messily, pieces falling around her face. She looks softer in the morning. “There’s this moment, when I wake up, where I forget. And then—” 

“Maybe it gets better,” he starts, but, no, that’s not right. “Or not... better. You get used to it. Or something.”  

Grizz knows that what he’s saying seems impossible. Maybe not impossible because it can’t happen but because it _shouldn’t_ happen. You have to remember how much it hurts, have to feel it everyday, because having that pain means you haven’t moved on. Forgetting is the worst sin. Grizz is familiar with impossible things, with contradictions and multitudes.  

“Like Aeschylus?” Allie says, grinning. 

Grizz laughs, and he breaks out into a smile. “Yeah, like Aeschylus.” 

Allie thanks him for the note. He messes with a hair tie that he’s wearing around his wrist, suddenly embarrassed to have her acknowledge the gesture.  

“I don’t know if I’ve said this, but thank you for, you know, taking care of me and everything,” Allie says.  

He shakes his head. “That’s no problem,” he responds, because it isn’t. He's afraid of her getting hurt, sure, and not being able to protect her. But if he’s tasked with taking care of anyone, he’s not upset that it’s Allie. Grizz thinks that maybe he could be good at this—at taking care of people that he loves. It makes him feel quiet, safe, calm, like he knows exactly why he’s here. 

 

***

 

Grizz doesn’t really dream anymore (probably because he doesn’t really sleep anymore). He sleeps with the windows open and the blinds pulled back. Sometimes, when he wakes up, he can tell it rained the night before because his sheets smell like damp, like dirt. The light streams in through his windows and he hears the calls of birds and he can pretend that he’s somewhere else.  

Grizz used to imagine waking up in a shitty dorm room at UC Berkley. He’d lay in bed for an hour, dancing the line between wakefulness and sleep, thinking about getting as far from West Ham as he could. It’s ironic, he thinks, because he got his wish in the most Shakespearean way possible. Irony and tragedy and comedy and drama—Grizz feels them woven through his life like a play already written. 

This morning, Grizz wakes up after only sleeping an hour, and his limbs feel so heavy that he can’t move, like they’re pumped full of lead. He stares at the ceiling, thinks and thinks and thinks until the voice in his head buzzes like static. At 7:28 he remembers the raid, remembers that today they have to _arrest_ someone. Because this is what it’s come to.  

He pulls half his hair into a messy topknot, puts on a dark grey sweatshirt, and tells the guys he overslept. Luke is pissed at him, but his anger towards Grizz is eclipsed by the shock and fear and _Fuck, what is that_ that they all feel when Clark pulls out a gun. Then Jason starts talking about reading his rights, and Grizz kind of wants to scream. 

“There’s no more legal system, Jason!” he says. “We’re living in some sort of fucking black hole anti-universe, I really don’t think that the Miranda warning—” 

Luke cuts them off, says they should just fucking do it. Grizz knows that they’re arguing to postpone whatever they’re going to have to do inside this house, that they’re scared because if they fuck this up it’s going to be really, really bad. Like, point of no return, we-took-power-and-now-we-don't-know-how-to-wield it, militarized state bad. Grizz knows, he’s watched a shit-ton of PBS.  

 

***

 

Sam is part of the Committee-on-Going-Home. Grizz overhears them having meetings sometimes, and today when he walks past the kitchen he hears Becca say, “This is the fourth meeting of the Committee on Going Home. What have you got?”   

They talk about sending a drone over the forest and how the footage cut out when they went too far. Sam and Becca looked through City Hall documents, but they found nothing useful. Really, they don’t know what’s going on.  

Grizz stands in the doorway, hands braced on the wood. Sam’s back is to him, and Grizz watches his hands move. He isn’t speaking right now, instead letting Becca dictate everything. Grizz wonders what makes him decide to speak sometimes. Gordie notices Grizz in the doorway, nods curtly at him before returning to the conversation. Sam doesn’t notice.  

Grizz doesn’t know what to believe about where they are. There’s not even enough evidence to put together any sound theories. He lives and dies by the scientific method, observation and trials and results that can be replicated. But here, there’s nothing to test. They’re completely blind, wandering around endless forests and trapped under a sky that cameras can’t fly high enough into. Grizz _knows,_ innately, that there’s an answer. He’s just not really sure if they’ll ever be able to figure out it. 

Grizz hates a lot of things about himself, but he thinks that this thought might be the thing he hates most—sometimes he’s happy that they got stuck here. Maybe not happy, that’s not quite right, but satisfied, because it gives him an answer. Maybe it makes sense now, maybe his soulmate is back in the old Connecticut or their original universe or whatever fucked up theory the Committee has come up with now. Maybe there’s someone out there, skin blank and waiting for a soulmate that will never show up because Grizz is a fucking dimension away. Grizz tries to convince himself that this is the truth, that the universe decided it wasn’t worth it to give him a mark because he’d never met his soulmate anyways. It hurts, thinking that there’s someone he could love that he never will, but it hurts a lot fucking less than the thought that maybe he doesn’t have a soulmate at all.  

Grizz knows it’s selfish of him to think like this because everyone has lost so much here. But Grizz fucking lost things too, his family and his future and the person he knew he was going to become. He’s lost a lot more than any of them can know, and if he can take one thing back, one tiny bit of ground that says _You are not a mistake, you are not wrong, you are not incomplete_ , he’s going to take it.  

 

***

 

There’s something about the woods that Grizz likes. Even with New Ham abandoned by 85% of its population, it’s still hard to find quiet places. He’s packed in a makeshift bedroom in Allie’s house with three other guys (not that he’s in there much anyways). The cafeteria is always loud, and Grizz could probably find some quiet at the church but he doesn’t have particularly fond memories there. There's the football field and the library and the park, but he still feels trapped whenever he goes to those places. They’re all from _before_ , and he doesn’t really feel like he belongs there anymore.  

Grizz didn’t go to the woods a lot before they were dropped in New Ham. He never really noticed them, to be honest. Now, he comes out when he can’t sleep, early in the morning. There’s a clearing about 20 minutes from Allie’s, if you walk southeast past the old car dealership. The leaves are starting to turn, and he can tell fall is biting at their heels. The highbush is turning red, and if he squints, it’s like he’s looking at the bright veins of someone laid out in front of him. It’s beautiful and calm and clear and he wants to show it to Sam. He thinks Sam would understand. 

Right now, though, they’re in the forest and not for a good reason. They’re going to execute Dewey. _Grizz_ is going to execute Dewey. Greg keeps saying over and over again , _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,_ like a terrible scratch caught in a record. He knows why Allie has to do this, and he doesn’t blame her (it’s not his place, anyway). He knows why he has to do this.  

Dewey says his name, “Grizz, buddy, please,” he sobs. “Please don’t let ‘em do it.”  

Grizz feels exactly like he did when he had the flu back in sophomore year. He’s hot, can hear his heart beating in his ears, and he throws up. _You’re going to kill someone,_ he thinks, _because it’s what_ _has to_ _be done. Because it’s what a real man does._ He’s shaking, chills wracking his body, tired and wrung out, and he looks at the gun in his hand. 

“We really gonna do this?” he asks Luke, because he trusts Luke, because Luke is good, is his friend.  

Luke’s eyes dart around, cagey and anxious. “Let’s just—let's just do it, alright. Allie?” 

Grizz lifts the gun in his left hand. Allie counts down, and he closes his eyes, wraps his finger around the trigger and pulls.  

The gun kicks back, the recoil forcing this arm back into his shoulder. His hand throbs, it feels so fucking wrong, and he forces his eyes open. Greg isn’t dead. Grizz thinks he should feel relieved or angry or _something_ but right now he doesn’t feel anything, feels fucking empty. 

“We have to go again,” Allie says. 

“Are you fucking serious?” Grizz asks because he’s not shooting the gun again. He did it once for Allie, because he’s loyal and he knows his place. But a second time, he’s not sure. What more does he have to prove?  

He lifts the gun, pulls it back. He knows the Guard will think he’s weak. He knows how this makes him look. He’s everything they always said about him behind his back, all of it was true, and he can’t find it in himself to care anymore.  

“I can’t fucking do this, man” he says. “I’m sorry, guys. I’m really sorry.”  

He puts the gun down hastily and backs away like it’s dangerous, because it is. Because he’s dangerous. He walks away, turns his back, and waits until it’s over.  

Grizz doesn’t go in the woods as often now. The silence is daunting, eerie, like someone is watching him. The forest isn’t safe anymore, and they took that away from him, too.  

 

***

 

The night they execute Dewey, it storms. The rain turns to hail when the temperature drops, and the wind picks up so much that it strips the leaves off the trees. It feels like a hurricane (or whatever a bunch of kids from Connecticut would think a hurricane is like). Or maybe divine retribution, nature crying out that they fucked up bad this time. Grizz doesn’t know which option is more likely. 

Allie calls everyone in the house to the basement because the wind is so strong they’re afraid the windows will break. Everyone walks down in their pajamas, rubbing their eyes and yawning. After a lot of deliberation, they put _Ferris Bueller’s Day Off_ into the old TV in the front of the room.  

Grizz stumbles down the stairs with his comforter wrapped around him. He falls onto a couch in the corner of the room, slightly hidden and tucked under the stairs. He’s burrowed under the blanket and nodding off when Sam taps on his shoulder. He gestures to the open spot, and Grizz nods, a little too eagerly. Sam settles next to him, a modest inch between his thigh and Grizz’s. 

They don’t say anything for a while. Grizz feels hyper-aware of every movement Sam makes. The stairs cast a sharp shadow across Sam’s face, and when Grizz glances over (which is a lot), he can see the light of the tv reflecting in his eyes. Grizz notices, then, that no one thought to turn the subtitles on. He suddenly doesn’t know what to do with his hands. Placing them in his lap seems awkward but crossing them across his chest would come off as hostile (in reality, Grizz knows Sam wouldn’t really give a shit because he’s not analyzing his every move). Instead, he places his right arm on the armrest and stretches his left out to lay on the back of the couch behind Sam. _He knows what it looks like, okay?_  

Sam shifts again, brings his right hand up to rub at his bicep. 

Grizz taps him on the shoulder. “Are you cold?” he asks. 

Sam squints and replies, “I’m sorry, it’s kind of dark in here. What did you say?”  

Grizz nods, and his stomach clenches. He brings his hand up, carefully spelling out the word C-O-L-D. It’s awkward and Grizz knows it looks clumsy, but Sam doesn’t mention it. He only smiles and nods in a silent _Yes._  

Grizz offers him part of the comforter, and Sam takes it willingly. It feels unbelievably domestic—sharing a blanket while watching a movie in the basement. Grizz has to remind himself that this isn’t romantic. So what if Sam is under the same blanket that Grizz sleeps with every night? They’re friends, right? It’s like a sleepover. A platonic, fun sleepover with two guys and no sexual tension. 

Sam moves closer to Grizz, the length of his leg pressed up against Grizz’s. Grizz is only wearing a pair of light grey sweatpants and a loose black shirt, while Sam is clad in a grey Henley and joggers. If Sam were to lean back now, he could settle into the curve of Grizz’s arm and Grizz would be holding him. (He likes that Sam is smaller than him, likes to think about wrapping his arms around his frame, about holding Sam’s face in his hands.)  

Grizz shakes his head, trying to displace the hair that’s fallen in his eyes. Sam looks up at the movement, and their eyes connect. It passes between them again—that hot flash of _something,_ something just out of reach. Sam laughs and ducks his head down, and Grizz thinks _Oh, okay, dodged that one_ , before he feels the press of Sam’s shoulder against his chest. Sam is leaning against him. Grizz feels dizzy, a wave of inexplicable warmth rushing across him like a heat wave. He wonders if Sam would notice him lowering his arm, wrapping it around the curve of his neck, his shoulder.  

Grizz doesn’t really have the time to contemplate if he should move his arm because after a second Sam starts shuffling around, pulling the comforter up to his neck, and when he stops, his head is resting on Grizz’s chest. Grizz sucks in a breath, tries not to move, then thinks, _Fuck_ _it,_ and winds his arm around Sam’s shoulder, his hand coming to rest across Sam’s chest.  

Grizz looks straight ahead, but it’s not like whatever is playing on the TV even registers. He sees Sam bite his tongue between his teeth and smile. Grizz tightens his arm, instinctually, pulling Sam closer to him. Sam reaches his right hand up, wraps his fingers around Grizz’s wrist and then laces their fingers together. It feels so fucking intimate, and all Grizz can think is that he wants to be closer to Sam, that this isn’t fucking enough. He unlaces their fingers, grazes his fingertips over the back of Sam’s hand, over his palm. He traces his fingers over the ridges of his knuckles, then his wrist, finally wrapping them loosely around his pulse point, and he swears he can hear Sam’s breathing hitch. He wants to hear it again. 

Sam has his knees tucked up to his chest, probably because it’s so cold in the basement. Grizz moves his hand, rests it on Sam’s knee for just a moment, like he’s asking permission. Sam turns, extends his legs a little, and then his knee is resting on Grizz’s thigh. Grizz hitches Sam’s leg up, and he can’t hear anything. He knows there are probably people whispering and the movie is still playing, but all Grizz can hear is the roaring of his pulse in his ears, the same pulse he swears he can feel where his thumb is resting on the back of Sam’s knee. Grizz wonders if anyone has ever touched Sam here before. 

They stay like that for a while. Grizz doesn’t pay a lot of attention to the movie, instead focused on the way Sam’s head is pressed against his chest. _He can hear my heartbeat,_ Grizz thinks. _My fucking heartbeat._ Grizz is comfortable, warm, he feels calm. Well, he was calm before he felt Sam slip a hand under the hem of his t-shirt. His fingers are light, barely there, but they’re hot on the skin of his stomach. Grizz wants to ask him _What are you_ _doing? Do_ _you know where we are?_ but he doesn’t think he’d be able to get the words out.  

Grizz wonders, only for a second, if anyone can see them. They’re kind of hidden beneath the shadow of the stairs but not enough that someone wouldn’t be able to make out their faces. The movement of Sam’s hand against his skin is making him dizzy, irrational. He doesn’t think he could move even if the lights were on. He wonders if Sam would be doing this if the lights were on, if anyone were watching. He knows Sam wants him, knows he’s right here _with_ him, but for some reason, Grizz doesn’t feel like he’s really here . It feels like a stolen moment, so fucking good that it can’t possibly belong to him. And you can take stolen things, sure, but they're never really _yours._  

Sam is moving his fingers in lazy circles around the taut skin of Grizz’s stomach. It feels so effortless that Grizz could mistake it as being unintentional, but he knows that every single move Sam is making is a choice. Sam slips a finger into the waistband of Grizz’s sweatpants and a part of Grizz’s brain panics  _What the fuck, what the fuck,_ while a louder voice says _Finally._  

Sam turns and looks up at him. He leans close, his mouth right next to Grizz’s ear. 

“Have you ever done this before?” Sam asks.  

Grizz shakes his head slowly, knows Sam can see it. He’s done something like this, once, when he was sixteen and scared and so he walked around Harvard’s campus and— but, _No,_ he thinks, _nothing like this._ Nothing quiet and slow and with someone he really likes, with someone who he thinks really likes _him._  

Grizz wants to kiss him. He wants Sam’s hands under his t-shirt, in his hair, he wants him more than he’s wanted anything in a fucking long time. It feels like waking up, like coming up for air, like walking into the rain. He can feel his dick, hard and heavy in his sweats, and Sam is looking at him and Grizz thinks about Sam’s fingers (his fucking fingers which Grizz spends so much time watching, moving fast as he signs and around a coffee mug in the morning and tapping on the table when he’s nervous) wrapping around him and— 

Someone turns the light on in the basement, and Grizz snaps back into reality like whiplash. He pulls his arm back and doesn’t really _push_ Sam off him so much as he moves away so their skin isn’t flush together anymore. Sam looks at him, undeniably hurt and confused.  

“Sam, I’m sorry. I—” he starts, but Sam isn’t looking at him anymore. “I didn’t mean it like— fuck, just—” he wraps his hand around Sam’s arm and Sam’s gaze is sharp, “just look at me, please.”  

“Don’t,” Sam says, pushing Grizz’s hand off his arm. He tosses off the blanket, walks over to Becca, and shakes her shoulder gently to wake her up. She smiles at him blearily, and Grizz’s heart clenches in his chest. Sam looked at him like that, Sam _touched_ him like that, gentle and kind, and Grizz fucking ruined it. Grizz pulls the comforter around him and shuts his eyes. He doesn’t open them again until he hears the last footsteps go up the staircase. 

 

***

 

The boy at Harvard showed Grizz his soulmark. He hadn’t met them yet, hadn’t heard the words _Hey man, you dropped your wallet._ It’s not an uncommon thing— dating and hooking up while waiting to find your soulmate. There are some couples that don’t meet until they’re well past their 20’s and 30’s, and usually, a person isn’t willing to wait that long. So, unmatched people will mess around, but there’s always the knowledge hanging over it that this is temporary, that it doesn’t really mean anything. It’s a waiting game.  

The guy (what was his name again? Charlie? Chase?) was a sophomore, pre-med. He noticed Grizz wandering around campus aimlessly, asked if he needed directions getting anywhere.  

“The library?” Grizz asked, unsure. 

Charlie or Chase or whatever walked him there and then stayed. He showed Grizz where the Ancient Philosophy section was, flirted with him, put his hand a little too low on his back. He saw the look in Grizz’s eye, a mutual understanding, pushed him up against the wall and sucked a bruise on the skin of his neck, right below the jaw.  

They went back his to his dorm room, and Charlie sucked him off, fast and impersonal. He didn’t ask Grizz for anything in return, even when he offered. 

“I get the feeling that you don’t really want to,” he said. “How old are you anyway?” 

“Eighteen,” Grizz lied. He was tall enough to get away with it. 

“Huh,” Charlie replied, leaning back on the bed so his head was against the wall. He looked over at Grizz lazily. “You met your soulmate yet?” Grizz shook his head.  

“Me neither,” Charlie said, nodding. He pulled his shirt up so Grizz could see the words, black against his side.  

Charlie left soon after that, citing a presentation he had to give in a communications class. He told Grizz he could stay there if he wanted, but his roommate would probably be back around seven. Grizz laid on the bed for a while, stared at the ceiling, thought, _Is this it? Is this what people write sonnets and novels and vows for?_  

When he came home that night, his mom took one look at the marks on his neck, his disheveled hair, and asked quietly, “Are you okay, baby?” He didn’t say anything, just walked up and hugged her. She ran her fingers through his hair and kissed him on the temple. 

Charlie didn’t kiss him. Grizz thought it was probably better that way.  

 

***

 

Grizz goes upstairs to his room (if he can really call anything “his” anymore) and falls asleep quickly. He wakes up a little while later, jolted to alertness by a dream he can’t really remember. There was the rustling of leaves, the click of a gun being reloaded, someone standing behind him, their fingers moving from the metal of the gun down to his hipbone, the red veins of the forest spreading out before him, a heat wave that makes him sweat. He wakes up, stares at the ceiling for five minutes, then stands up, throwing on a grey sweatshirt. It’s not that cold in the house, but he’s shivering anyway.  

Grizz doesn’t knock on Allie’s door before going in. He knows she won’t be sleeping. Allie is sitting against the headboard, her knees bent to her chest. He sits gingerly on the edge of the bed, folds his hands in his lap because he doesn’t know what to do with them. She looks at him, emotionless, but he can see that she’s been crying. The rims of her eyes are red and she keeps sniffling and her gaze is so fucking blank and he doesn’t want to see her like that.  

“You don’t really know what you’re capable of until you...” he starts, feeling his throat constrict, the telltale sign that he’s going to cry. He’s too fucking tired to try to stop it.  

She nods. “What does that say about me?” Allie asks, defensive. He shakes his head because he wouldn’t think that, wouldn’t put that on her. “You couldn’t do it. I could.” 

“You had to,” Grizz says, but he knows it’s not really enough. “And I didn’t— I didn’t mean it that way.”  

She huffs out a laugh, short and bitter. “You didn’t have to mean it like that. It’s true.” She looks at him, continues, “He did two things, you know? He did two things. He killed my sister. And then he made me kill him. I don’t know which is worse.”  

Grizz doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t have a quote to recite. He takes her hand instead, winds his fingers through hers. They don’t really talk after that. Allie pulls out her laptop and puts on _When Harry Met Sally_ , which is apparently one of the only movies she has saved. They sit there for a while, sides pressed together because neither of them can bear being alone tonight. 

“When I was younger,” Grizz says suddenly, and Allie turns her head to look up at him, “I would sit on my mom’s lap a lot. She would, uh, she’d run her fingers through my hair.” 

“You have a lot of hair,” Allie replies. 

“Yeah,” he says, smiling. “She’d comb through it like she was looking for lice, you know?” 

“Why?” Allie asks, her eyebrows drawn together. 

“I asked her to, most of the time. It was the only place I couldn't see in a mirror, and I—” Grizz breathes in, “I wanted her to see if my soulmark had appeared.” 

Allie’s face softens, and she leans forward, pausing the movie. “Grizz,” she says quietly. 

“I don’t have a soulmate,” he says. “My words never came, and I’m eighteen now so they probably never will.”  

“You don’t know that,” Allie replies. 

He smiles at her. “Yeah, Allie, I do.”  

She reaches up, places a hand on the back of his neck and winds her fingers in the soft hair at the base. “You don’t know that,” she says again, stubbornly. “You could talk to Gordie about it. He might have some theories with the, you know,” she waves a hand around vaguely, “space-time parallel universe shit. He might know something about it.” 

He bites his tongue and nestles down under the blankets. Allie’s fingers are carding through his hair, and it’s making him tired. “Maybe,” he says. He presses the spacebar on the laptop so the movie starts again, and Allie sighs. They don’t talk anymore, but Grizz has a feeling that the conversation isn’t really over. 


	3. three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello friends! we’re finally back! i know this is tagged as canon-compliant, but the timeline will start to diverge a little after this chapter. i took some liberties with how i describe the scenes that are directly from the show, but it’s all for the sake of fitting it together with the characterization i'm going for. 
> 
> i think you guys will enjoy this chapter a lot! my comma use really went to shit but it’s poetry y’all i can’t help it. i swear i was going to keep this at four chapters, but this one became a little bit of a monster and still doesn’t include everything that was outlined so i may have to extend it to five. anyways, happy reading! 
> 
> ps. if you guys find any grammatical errors, please let me know! i read this so many times that i think i just skip over them now lol

“Thanks again for doing this for me, you guys.” 

“Sure,” Clark says, swinging the bolt-cutter from one hand to the other.  

Luke sighs, letting the door swing shut behind him. “Just... I know it’s silly, the world being what it is, who gives a fuck about the institution of marriage?” 

 _You’re so fucking lucky,_ Grizz wants to say, _that you get to decide whether to get married or not. You’re so fucking lucky that you get to choose._ He doesn’t say it, though, just walks up to the glass case full of rings and peers in.  

“All right... uhm, what are you thinking?” Grizz asks, pointing in front of him. “Any of these guys?”  

“Yeah,” Luke answers, walking over.  

Grizz moves behind the counter, sliding the glass partition open and pulling out a case of rings. 

“I don’t know why you’re fretting so hard on this ring shit. It’s not like you’re buying anything for her. You’re just handing it to her,” Clark says, and Grizz thinks it was probably a mistake to bring him here. (Luke asked Grizz to be his best man. He feels strangely possessive over this experience, wants the wedding to be perfect for Luke and Helena. Grizz wishes, not for the first time, that Clark wasn’t there.) 

Luke shakes his head. “I want to do it right, you know?” He picks a ring out from the case, rolls it between two fingers. “She’s special. I want her to feel special.”  

Grizz surveys the counter as Luke looks at the rings. There’s a piece of paper printed out and slipped into a cheap plastic display board. It reads _Your first words to your last: Have your_ _soulmark_ _engraved today for a small fee! Perfect for engagements and annivers_ _ar_ _ies_ _._ Grizz stuffs his hands in his pockets and looks away.  

Luke keeps talking about Helena, holding a ring up right in front of him. “She sees in me who I can be, not just the dude I think I am.” He looks up, stares at Grizz like he's talking only to him. “When someone sees you like that, you want them looking at you forever.” Luke’s mouth quirks up in a smile, and he lets out a short laugh before looking back down at the ring. 

Grizz just stares out him, immobilized, because why would Luke say it like that? Say it to _him_ right now, knowing what those words would mean. Grizz is fucking invisible. He doesn’t get to be _seen_ , doesn’t get _forever_. He’s always known that he’s not going to get married, that he won’t have a family, but the way Luke says it makes his pulse stop. He feels his teeth grinding together, a steady thrum of anger and hurt and pain that he isn’t supposed to feel anymore boiling inside of him. 

Grizz blinks and lowers his eyes, knowing that tears are welling up in the corners. There’s no point in being mad, he _knows_. It’s not Luke’s fault. _It’s not your fault, either,_ he thinks, but the words don’t ring true. They’re hollow and useless and small in the face of the giant fucking void that’s opening up inside Grizz’s chest. He feels them swallowed up, a wave of something terrible and dense surging through his veins, cracking his bones and crawling through his muscles, tearing him apart.  

Grizz thought that maybe after a while it would stop hurting. He’s starting to think that maybe he was wrong.  

 

***

 

Grizz is going to see Sam.  

It only takes Luke a few more minutes to pick out a ring (it’s not like he really knows what he’s looking for, anyway). Clark mutters, “Fucking finally,” and stands up from the chair he’s been lounging in. They leave the store, not bothering to find something to lock it back up with— what is jewelry worth anyways? Their currency is food rations and electricity and moments of quiet between all this fucking chaos. Grizz understands scarcity economics, what makes gold and silver and diamonds worthless here.  

There’s a restless energy buzzing under his skin, a swarm trying to escape. He wants to crack his knuckles, wants to run a mile.

“I need to go,” Grizz says suddenly.  

Luke’s brow furrows. “Uh, okay. Where are you—” Luke starts to ask before he’s cut off by Grizz, already walking away.  

“I’ll see you back at the house,” Grizz shouts, stalking away and reaching into his pockets to try to find his phone. He pulls it out, unlocks it, and finds the contact in his phone. (Allie made them do it— she said it was safer this way, that everyone in the house would be able to contact each other. That’s the reason he has this number, not because it was given to him or because he asked for it. Grizz is fucking tired of being a passive force.) 

 _I want to see you,_ Grizz types, his fingers swift on the screen. He stumbles a little, then, taken aback with house those words have spilled   out of him, easy and fast. He shakes his head, _You’re a goddamn idiot,_ he thinks, and presses the backspace.  

 

~~_a_ _re you busy?_ _i_ _was hoping we could go over_   ~~

~~_h_ _i, this is_ _g_ _rizz_ _._ _i_ _don’t know if you have me in your contacts but_ _i_ _was wondering if_   ~~

~~_w_ _here can_ _i_ _find you?_ _i_ _need to_   ~~

_i_ _need to see you._  

 

Grizz stops walking. This isn’t going to work. He deletes everything and opens a different conversation.  

 

 _hey_ _gordie_ _, any idea where_ _i_ _could find sam?_  

 

Grizz sends the message, waits a few seconds before typing again. 

 

 _allie_ _told me to get some stuff from him that you_ _put together at the last committee meeting._  

 

It’s a lie and anyone could probably tell, but Grizz learned to fucking cover his tracks, to bury shit like that so deep inside his own skin that even if they cut him open they couldn’t find it. (Sam looks at him, though, like he sees it, like he _knows,_ like he has Grizz all figured out and it scares Grizz how much he needs it, how much he wants Sam to keep looking at him . _You make me fucking sweat_ , Grizz wants to tell him. He doesn’t know the sign language for any of that though.)  

He’s sitting on the curb in front of the post office when Gordie responds. His hands are so fucking cold, fingers stiff when he opens the message. His mom would laugh if she saw him, tell him that if anyone looked at his hands they would think he’s been free climbing the cliffs on the east end of town. _Callouses show you’ve worked hard,_ his dad would say, ending the conversation.

  

 _He went to the library about an hour_ _ago so he might still be there._  

 _What do you need from the meeting? It’s p_ _robably at the house, so I can look for it._  

 

 _nah it’s fine!_ _i_ _wanted to go to the library_ _anyways._

 _thanks dude_  

 

Grizz is going to see Sam. He’s going to walk in there and apologize and say whatever he needs to say to make Sam forgive him. Grizz still has nightmares, still finds it hard to fall asleep, but there are other dreams now, the type of dreams he hasn’t really had since they got stuck here. He wakes up with the ghost of those fingers trailing over his skin, pulling his shirt up, dipping under his waistband, pushing his hair back from his sweaty forehead, _pulling it_. Grizz needs to see Sam, needs to know that he’s not the only one feeling whatever the fuck is between them.  

He’s going to push through the doors of the library, find Sam, get in his space, make him fucking admit that he wants this too. He’s still buzzing with this energy that Luke’s words sparked in him. Grizz lets the door swing shut behind him, and he’s going to do it, Grizz is going to get what he deserves, and he sees Sam there, back to him, wearing a brown corduroy jacket and scanning a book in the copier and Grizz’s resolve crumbles, shatters over him like a sheet of glass.  

Grizz turns back to face the door. _You could leave now. He doesn’t know you’re here,_ he thinks, but really he knows that the choice has already been made. Grizz feels like he decided this a long time ago, before he knew what it would mean. He exhales, tries to get his hands to stop shaking. Sam doesn’t want this version of him, the one that has baggage and nightmares and needs someone to take care of him— Sam has enough of that with Becca and his brother. He likes when Grizz is funny and laughing and a little out of breath, and Grizz can be that for him. He exhales, adjusts his backpack, and walks up to Sam.  

Grizz stands in the periphery of Sam’s vision and waves awkwardly, trying to get his attention. Sam looks up, his face lighting up in surprise before he realizes (Grizz thinks) that he’s supposed to be mad at him. Sam's face shutters up, closes like all the windows pulled tight before a storm comes in. Sam’s eyebrows draw together, he puts his book down, and takes a step forward. The t-shirt he’s wearing is a bright ocean blue, and it reminds Grizz of the time his mom took him to the beach.   

“What are you doing here?” Sam asks.  

Grizz blinks, surprised for some reason that Sam is speaking so openly to him. He expected him to be silent, angry, standoffish, the way Grizz is when he’s angry. Grizz is starting to realize that he thinks a lot of things about Sam that aren’t really true.  

 Gordie said I could find you in the, um, the library,” Grizz responds, not meeting Sam’s gaze (which is steady and piercing and blue blue _blue_ ). Grizz shifts from one foot to the other, brushes his hair behind his ear. _You need to get a fucking haircut, Jesus Christ,_ he thinks.  

“Okay,” Sam says, slowly.  

“Um, just—just one second,” Grizz says, slipping his backpack off and dropping it to the floor. “Let me just—” he raises his hands in front of him like he’s about to push someone over. Sam looks confused. _Of course he looks confused,_ Grizz thinks, _because you look like a fucking idiot._   

“Okay uhm,” Grizz says, steeling himself. He lays his left hand over his right then slides it off. He places his pointer finger in the middle of his palm, twists his hand, continues with the rest of the signs he spent two fucking hours practicing last night. He’s mouthing the words as he signs them, not so much for Sam but for himself because Grizz is really nervous and he wants to get this right. Sam raises his eyebrows as he watches Grizz, his mouth quirking up in a smile, and Grizz thinks maybe he’s forgotten he’s supposed to be mad at Grizz.  

Grizz finishes with the last sign and looks at Sam expectantly. He pulls his bottom lip between his teeth, inexplicably needing whatever Sam says next to be validation.  

Sam shakes his head slowly. “Um...” he trails off, grinning, and Grizz thinks, _I did that._ He thinks, _I want to do it again._  

“No?” Grizz asks. “Uh, you don’t look so impressed...”  

Sam angles his body closer, uncrosses his arms from his chest. “Am I supposed to understand that?” he asks but there’s no venom in it. _He’s flirting with me_ , Grizz thinks, and that makes something small and green and _new_ bloom in his chest.  

“You didn’t?” Grizz responds, laughing.  

Sam shakes his head, gestures towards Grizz’s hands which are still outstretched. “No.” 

“Well fuck, that’s—” 

Sam moves even closer to him. “What are you doing?” Sam asks. He’s laughing but there’s a genuine curiosity there, a need to understand.  

Grizz lowers his gaze. “Trying to speak in gibberish, apparently.” He looks back up at Sam. “I wanted to say, ‘How are you? It’s nice to see you. How do you like my sign language?’” 

Grizz pulls a book out his backpack and shows the cover to Sam. He’d taken it about a week ago and tried not to think about the implications of what he was doing. Grizz had panicked for a second when he couldn’t find his wallet because it had his _library card_ in it, and if he lost that card he was thoroughly fucked because there’s nothing to fucking do in this town. Then he remembered that he doesn’t need a library card anymore. Shit like that happens to him less and less now, these strange, potent reminders that _everything_ is different, not just the big stuff like school and government and money but also the fact that library books are free in a different way. It’s dumb, and Grizz really shouldn’t be getting emotional about the fucking _library_ but whatever.  

Sam really laughs then, like a fucking belly-laugh that makes his shoulders shake.  

“What?” Grizz asks, but Sam won’t stop laughing. Grizz smiles, lilts his voice like he knows people do when they’re flirting, and asks again, “What?” 

“This is BSL,” Sam says, signing the letters. “I use ASL.” 

Grizz’s eyes go wide. “They’re different?” he asks and realizes _Duh, of course, they’re different,_ because even though Grizz is smart and likes Nietzsche and can speak really fucking good French, he still gets stuff like this wrong sometimes.  

“Yeah,” Sam says, faking a grimace, but his eyes are still crinkled at the edges, smiling.  

Grizz slams the book down in mock-anger. “Come on man, it was the only book I could find!” 

Sam looks at him for a long second. His eyes flicker over Grizz, and he’s still smiling but it’s softer somehow. It looks _fond_ , and fuck, if that doesn’t make Grizz’s chest ache.  

“Why are you learning sign language?” Sam asks. “Are you planning on going deaf?” 

Grizz is smiling and smiling and smiling, and he fixes his eyes on Sam. “No, I’m not.”  

Grizz realizes, then, that Sam is _funny_. He knows Sam is gay and deaf and kind and now he knows that he’s funny, too. Grizz wants to take the piece of information, hold it close to his chest because it’s something that he learned about Sam himself, not a rumor or an offhand remark or a far-away observation. It feels private and personal and hopeful, this conversation that they’re having.  

“I just—” he starts, but he doesn’t really know how to explain it without being so painfully obvious. “I just wanted to be able to talk to you... or, you know, sign to you,” he adds after a moment before thinking _Oh my god, really_ _Grizz_ _, he fucking gets, it stop talking!!!_  

Sam is leaning against the desk next to him, and he peers up at Grizz. Grizz thinks, secretly, about how he’s so much taller than Sam, how it pulls his breath in and drags it down like a hook, burning as it goes.  

“I can read lips,” Sam responds.  

“I know,” Grizz says quickly. “I want to be able to talk you, you know, in your language.” Grizz knows what it’s like to not be seen, what it’s like when people don’t even _try_ to understand because it’s so easy to overlook it. Grizz understands being on the outside and looking in. That’s why he’s trying to learn sign language.  

“Oh,” Sam says, and there’s a long pause while Sam cocks his head to the side, his tongue swiping between his lips. Grizz realizes how close they’ve come to each other. He could reach out and touch Sam, feel the fabric of his jacket. He can see the freckles on his cheeks, hear him breathe. “Shouldn’t you be getting ready for this trip?” 

Grizz breaks out of whatever _lust-fueled vacation_ his brain just took. “Oh, yeah, sure. It’s just, I also want to be prepared for when I get back.”  

He can tell that those last words came out more confident and intentional than he thought they would because Sam levels his gaze, looks at him really fucking seriously. The way Sam looks at him makes his skin buzz, makes it feel tight and hot, and Grizz wants him to keep looking, really, he does, but there’s still such a large part of him that says, _You_ _should be afraid._ Sam pushes himself off the desk, and Grizz wants to say _Please_ and _I want to—_ and _Take a fucking step back_ because Sam is reaching an arm around behind him and they’re almost chest to chest. 

“What are you—” Grizz starts to say, paralyzed, because he can’t go through another repeat of what happened in Allie’s basement, doesn’t think his dick can fucking take it again, especially not in the _library_. 

Sam pulls back, a hefty book in his hand with the title _Grimm’s Complete Fairytales_ emblazoned on the cover in gold script. “I found this while looking for books to help us,” Sam says, flipping open the cover where Grizz’s name is printed neatly on each line of the check-out log. “You must have liked fairytales.” 

“Why— what does a fairytale book have to do with what happened to us?” Grizz asks, trying to divert attention away from himself because liking fairytales when you’re eighteen? Not something he really wants to talk about with the boy he likes. 

Sam shrugs. “I don’t know. Sometimes they remind us what’s right and wrong. There’s always an answer for how to fix things. We need answers right now.” 

Grizz stares at him, eyes wide. “Yeah, uh, I get that.” He shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "You know that actually, the Grimm’s brothers didn’t write all of those stories? There was this woman, Dorothea Viehmann, who actually contributed like 40 of the stories and—sorry, it’s dumb. I—” 

“It’s not dumb,” Sam says. “It’s not dumb if you like it.” 

And Grizz is whipped; he’s so fucking _attracted_ to Sam in a way that he’s never been attracted to anyone before. He wants to hold his hand and make dinner with him and find out if he likes to watch Jeopardy as much as Grizz does and,  _sure,_ of course, he maybe wants to get down on his knees right now in the library and make Sam blush, but it’s more than that. He wants to  _take care_ of Sam. 

“Do you want to come with me to my—to the garden sometime?” Grizz asks, feeling brave and scared and a little bit too sure that _this_ is what he wants. 

Sam cocks his head, looking a little perplexed, but he agrees anyway. “Sure. I want to see these famous carrots I’ve heard so much about.” 

Sam wants to see his garden _,_ and he remembers Grizz talking about his fucking vegetables like they’re his kids  _You’re so fucked,_ he thinks, and if the voice sounds a little too much like Allie, well, he doesn’t notice.  

 

*** 

 

Grizz... isn’t really sure how he got into gardening. Okay, that's not  _exactly_ the truth, but it’s what he tells himself.

Really, he remembers getting shipped off to his grandparent's house each time his parent’s anniversary rolled around. He always knew when it was coming because his parents would start this banter back and forth for the days leading up, slipping the phrases _Is this seat taken?_ and _Uh, no, of course not_ into their conversations. He remembers the September weekend being strangely hot, year after year. His grandpa would take him to the lake, and they'd fish (Grizz _hated_ it. One year, when Grizz was probably about 13, he’d taken a book—was it Thoreau’s _Walden_? He couldn’t remember now. His grandpa had laughed and told him that maybe next year they should go see a play or something instead. The next time he went they saw _The Bridges of Madison County_ and it was _fantastic_.)  

His grandma would let him sit and watch her garden while his grandpa made dinner indoors. Grizz remembers those evenings in the inexplicable calm of the outdoors, the evening light washing over them. She would sometimes let him pull weeds if he behaved, but he was a clumsy kid and she didn’t want him to overrun her vegetables. When he can’t sleep Grizz thinks about it—about her hands pulling tomatoes off the vine and the words _Much obliged to meet you, ma’am_ , between her thumb and pointer finger caked with dirt.  

Grizz found his old bike in the shed behind his house, broke the padlock off with some bolt cutters he took from Allie’s garage. He rode it all the way down to his grandparent’s, right on the edge of town, when that weekend came in August. It looked like a fucking Eden in the garden—vines coiled around the tomato cages, weeds bursting through the wooden planters. Grizz took the whole day off from guard duties, sat in that garden and cried for an hour, chest tight with the possibility that this was all he had left of his family. _Did he cry this much before?_ Probably not. Grizz has seen what being here has done to other people, sharpening them, hardening them into adults, but Grizz is becoming softer. He's tempering, caving in on himself.  

When they got together in the church to parse out tasks, Grizz offered to take the garden. It seemed like the right thing to do (the only thing to do, really). No one ever came to see it, and Grizz never brought anyone here. Until Sam. 

It’s Thanksgiving, and _Really, we should go to the football game,_ but neither of them makes any move to leave their spot kneeling in front of Grizz’s carrots.  

“You want to grab the whole vegetable, not just the green part,” Grizz says, using his spade to push some dirt away. It feels good to have the shovel in his hand, solid and cool from being left out in the open. _You held a gun in that hand,_ he thinks. This isn’t a gun in his hands, though, and they aren't in the woods. He doesn’t have to make any decisions or pull a trigger, just needs to take care of his vegetables and make sure the broccoli isn’t getting frostbitten at night and, _really_ , he should ask Allie if they can afford to put up another greenhouse because— 

Grizz feels unhinged, even here in this place, in his place. He wants to focus on Sam, he does, but that feeling coursing through him, the directionless anxiety that’s burrowed into him since that night won’t fucking go away and the metal in his hand feels like the metal of the gun, cool and slick even though he knows it’s not. His breath is short, his throat constricting, and he needs to feel something that isn’t fucking hard and silver so he grabs Sam’s hand.  

It’s not like it’s weird _,_ they’ve touched each other before, and Sam doesn’t say anything so he must be okay with it. Grizz reaches out his right hand, places it over Sam’s where it’s resting on the wooden beam. Grizz can feel the back of Sam’s knuckles, the hair that dusts his finger, and they’re small hands ( _Like Allie’s,_ Grizz thinks, then a moment later, _Oh my god not like Allie’s, what the fuck)_ but they’re strong, too, calloused and defined.  

Grizz takes Sam’s hand and places it over the top of the carrot he’s just dug around. Grizz doesn’t really want to let go, but his hair is in his face and Sam’s probably going to notice that he's some fucking hand-pervert or something by the way this day is going. 

“Okay?” Grizz asks. 

Sam looks down at the carrot, the concentration on his face reminding Grizz of a kid trying to write do math in their head or something. 

“Okay,” Sam replies, while Grizz mimes the _Twist and pull_ his grandma taught him.  

Sam bites his lip, digs his fingers into the dirt, and pulls the carrot out triumphantly. Pride blooms in Grizz’s chest, weightless and bright.  

“Oh, yeah. Nice. There you go,” Grizz says, not really surprised at how quickly Sam caught on. He’s a fast learner.  

“Wow,” Sam says, breath foggy in front of him from the cold. “That’s pretty cool.”  

“Thank you, _yes,”_ Grizz replies because gardening _is_ pretty fucking cool. He grabs the bucket of kale he harvested earlier and brings it around between them. 

Sam shakes some of the dirt off his hands. “Should we pull some more? I mean, we’re already missing dinner,” Sam says.  

Grizz tries not to let it show on his face, but he goes a little cold when Sam asks that. It’s like a gut-reaction, fight-or-flight set off, saying _He doesn’t want to be here with you. He’s bored of you and your weird_ _fucking_ _plants._  

“Um, I don’t know. I sort of like losing track of time,” Grizz says slowly, not looking at Sam. “It happens a lot down here.”  

Grizz pauses for only a moment, not waiting for a response. “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. It’s um, Cicero,” he quotes, carefully signing C-I-C-E-R-O in the alphabet that he was _actually_ supposed to be learning (and maybe he stayed up all night after he met Sam in the library, bothering Gordie to teach him colloquial phrases but, _whatever, we need it to communicate as a TEAM,_ _Gordie_ _, it’s fucking survival_ _)_.  

Sam nods as Grizz’s hands move, a knowing smile playing on his lips. His cheeks are red from the chill in the air and he has his arms tucked into his sweatshirt and he looks so happy and soft that it makes Grizz want to do something crazy.  

“Cicero?” Sam asks. 

“Yeah.” 

“Very smart.” 

“Oh, thank you so much,” Grizz replies, fingering the cuff of his brown flannel, nervous and giggling like a fucking hormonal seventh-grader.  

“So...” Sam starts, “do you?” 

Grizz looks at him, confused. “Do I what?” 

“Have all you need?” Sam asks, and Grizz, maybe for the first time in his life, has no idea what to say. He’s missing a lot of things—his parents, the dorm room he was supposed to move into three months ago, drinking milk in the morning. But he also has _so much_ that he can’t believe it sometimes— Luke and Allie and those Family Breakfasts that Bean makes them have every Sunday even though you _really can’t consider it breakfast if it’s just shitty Folger’s coffee_ _we stole from the dining hall_ and Grizz has his garden and Sam.  

“Almost,” Grizz says, after a beat. He thinks it’s the truth, and it feels so good to say something honest, makes him feel reckless and brave. “You wanna go back to my place?” 

 

*** 

 

Okay, it doesn’t happen _exactly_ like that (even if Grizz remembers it being _very_ brazen and cool when he looks back on it). 

“Almost,” Grizz says, breaking eye contact with Sam after a moment and standing up. His joints crack, partially from the cold but mostly because the workouts he’s been doing are more self-defense-on-the-fly than regimented football drills. “Could use a drink, though. It’s fucking cold out here.” 

“A drink?” Sam asks, looking at up him from where he’s still sitting on the ground. “I think they have some, uh, some mulled wine or something at the Thanksgiving dinner.” 

Grizz snorts out a laugh. “Thanks, but I think I’ll pass. I’m pretty sure Will pulled that shit out of his ass, and Allie’s probably going to hand out drink tickets to keep everyone sober even though I _know_ Jason held a pregame in the park. A pregame for _Thanksgiving_.” 

Sam quirks an eyebrow and nods sagely. "Shit is crazy,” he signs. 

Grizz leans back on a planter behind him. “Do you want to go to the, uh, the Thanksgiving dinner? I know Becca is probably wondering where you are and—” Grizz starts.  

“No,” Sam says. “I need—I need a break, I think.” 

“A break? From what?” Grizz asks. 

Sam sighs, looks straight at him ( _He always looks straight fucking at me when he talks,_ Grizz notices, because it’s not a thing that a people do. Usually, people will make any excuse to avoid eye contact, so, _yeah_ , it’s a little unnerving to have all of Sam’s attention.)  

“Just... people getting together and pretending everything is okay because no one wants to admit how scared they are right now,” Sam says. “It’s fucking frustrating because it’s not like admitting you need help is _weak_ or something. And Becca, she—” Sam starts, biting his lip like he’s bracing himself, “she won’t admit that she’s not okay, and she won’t let me _do_ anything—” 

Grizz thinks Sam might start crying, and he _really_ doesn’t know what to do if that happens, so he stretches his hand out in front of him and asks Sam, “You wanna go back to my place?”  

Sam looks at his outstretched arm warily, still in a _state_ from whatever shit Becca is making him deal with.  

“Pretty sure my dad still has some pretty expensive brandy in his office that Jason and Clark never found.”  

Sam shrugs, then reaches out to grab Grizz’s hand, hoisting himself upright. “Alright. Let’s get wasted. I never liked Thanksgiving anyways.” 

“Campbell always give thanks for really fucked up shit at family dinner?” Grizz asks, still holding Sam’s hand in his as they walk out of the garden. 

Sam nods. “Melania Trump’s inauguration dress.” 

Grizz fakes a shudder, letting Sam’s hand fall out of his to put them in his pockets because, seriously, this is like, _frostbite_ weather. “What a fucking _pervert.”_  

 

 _***_  

 

“Oh my god, what the fuck,” Grizz says, using the back of his hand to wipe off his mouth.  

Sam grimaces, swallowing his own mouthful of the brandy they’re passing back and forth. “That tastes like gasoline." 

Grizz shifts his body, back aching from sitting on the floor and leaning against the frame of his bed. He hasn’t really been back here since he threw a duffle bag together of stuff to take to Allie’s house. It’s strange to look at everything left in here, untouched like a museum: awards lined up on a shelf over his desk, a dirty t-shirt thrown over his chair, his bed made and curtains drawn as-per the request of his mom before they left for the trip. He’s come back a few times, once to grab his Berkley sweatshirt and a headband because he _really_ can’t live without it at this point, but he hasn’t lingered. Not like he’s doing now, the line of his body pressed up against Sam’s as they drink, lounging on the floor of his bedroom.  

Everyone is at the Thanksgiving celebration, so there’s no one to interrupt them. Even if the party wasn’t happening, no one would be here anyway because Grizz’s house is too far into the suburbs (if you can even say that West Ham _has_ suburbs) for anyone to want to turn it into a glorified hostel.

The curtains are drawn and the sun is setting and Grizz is feeling a little bit warm, a little feverish from the alcohol, thinking about how he’s drinking from the same curve of glass that Sam’s lips have been on. It’s so fucking quiet, and Grizz feels _calm_ and _safe_ and _like he can breath_ _e_ for the first time in a while.  

“Sometimes I—I think about what it would be like to lose one of my senses,” Grizz says, head rolling over to look at Sam. “I know that’s, like, a shitty thing to do, but I don’t know. Being with you—uh, being  _around_ you makes me think about it.” 

“It’s not shitty,” Sam says, fingers moving as he signs lazily. “People ask me a lot, so I’m used to it.”  

Grizz brings the bottle up to his lips, blows across the top until it makes that hollow, undulating ring. He thinks about how Sam can’t hear it, pulls the bottle back, takes another drink. This shit _burns_ and _No wonder Clark didn’t take this_ , he thinks. 

“Being used to it doesn’t necessarily make it any easier,” Grizz says. 

Sam shifts, angles his body towards Grizz, the material of his shirt brushing against Grizz’s shoulder. It’s purple and looks really fucking soft and Grizz wants to _touch_. “I was three, maybe four. I had meningitis.”  

“Meningitis?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Yeah, wow, that’s—” Grizz says, swallowing. “You remember before then? Do you remember hearing at all?”  

Sam shrugs. “Some. I remember my mom’s voice, the way she would sing to me and Campbell. My dad’s laugh.” 

“Cool,” Grizz signs because he can’t talk. He feels small and his throat is tight with something that wears the face of sadness and anger but actually feels like _fear_ . Grizz knows he’s scared, knows he’s either going to s c ream or c ry because this _thing_ between him and Sam is so big that it doesn't fit inside him anymore.  

“When I dream, I still dream with sound. But not new sounds.” 

 _Do you dream about me?_ Grizz wants to ask . _I dream about you._ “What would be a new sound?” he says instead. 

“My voice,” Sam says, nodding. “I remember my voice when I was a kid, but I’m guessing it’s a little deeper now.”  

Grizz laughs softly, looks down to where his hands are clasped between his knees.  

After a moment, Sam speaks again. “I wish I could hear yours,” he says, slowly. 

Grizz looks up, peers at Sam who is so close Grizz could wrap his arms around him again. Grizz knows what happens next, what happens if they keep talking like this, he’s not _stupid_ . He _knows_ , and he doesn't stop because he doesn’t want to. Grizz is done not doing what he fucking wants, and he wants Sam.  

“Can you teach me one more phrase in sign language?” he says quietly because this moment feels so fucking fragile, the air between them about to shatter.  

Sam nods, and Grizz glances down because he doesn’t think he can say this with Sam looking at him like _that._ “How do you say ‘kiss me?’” 

There’s a second where nothing happens. Sam doesn’t say anything, just stares at him with those big blue eyes. The apology is on the edge of his tongue, _I’m sorry, Sam, that wasn’t—I shouldn’t have—_ and then Sam’s face is an inch away from his. 

Sam’s breath ghosts over Grizz’s cheek, warm and _real_ . This is _real._ Sam’s eyes are flickering across his face, searching for _something,_ and he must find it because then Sam shifts, his lips brushing over Grizz’s and they’re moving like he’s saying something but Grizz can’t fucking hear anything, just the sound of his blood roaring in his veins and his own breathing.  

When Sam kisses him it’s so fucking gentle that Grizz doesn’t know what he’s supposed to do. No one has ever kissed him like this before. His lips are a little chapped from the cold, and they taste a little like the brandy Grizz stole from his dad’s office. Sam presses into him, brushes his tongue across and Grizz’s bottom lip, and it startles Grizz.

 _Oh,_ he thinks, _okay._  

Sam brings his hands up to cradle Grizz’s face, and then he pulls back, eyes closed, opens his mouth like he’s about to say something but Grizz puts a hand on the back of Sam’s neck, pulls him back in. His knees are still tucked up to his chest, awkwardly, and _yeah, they’re going to have to move eventually_ , but Grizz isn’t really thinking about that right now. 

Grizz kisses, licks into Sam’s mouth, swipes his tongue across Sam’s teeth because they’re so fucking straight, because Grizz _can_. Sam brings his right hand back and fists it in Grizz’s hair, the thumb of his other hand stroking his jaw.  

“ _Fuck_ ,” Grizz says against Sam’s mouth because he’s a slut for getting his ha ir touched. Stroked, braided, pulled, _whatever,_ Grizz doesn’t care because Sam’s hands are so fucking pretty and he wants them all over him.  

Sam moves his head, kissing down Grizz’s neck, breath hot against his skin. He sucks on a spot right above his collarbone, grazes his teeth over it, and Grizz feels his head tip back against his will, his knees sliding down and legs falling open. He probably looks desperate, arching into Sam’s body, spreading his limbs out like this but his legs are so fucking long and he needs to feel Sam up against him and— 

Sam’s crawling up onto Grizz’s lap, kneeling in between his legs. He looks up at Grizz, lips red and eyes dark. “Okay?” he asks. 

“Fuck—yes, it’s okay, just—” Grizz says, his voice thick and breathless in a way he’s never heard it sound before and _Jesus, what the hell are you doing to me?_ he thinks. 

Grizz pulls his knees up a little, and Sam moves so he’s got his own legs bracketed around Grizz’s thighs. Grizz puts his hands on Sam’s hips, pulls Sam down until his ass is pressed up flush against him. He’s never _wanted_ like this before, desperate and aching, and there are too many clothes and he just wants Sam all fucking over him. When he pulls Sam back, the force of it crashes them against the side of the bed frame, but Grizz doesn’t care. Sam is kissing a spot under his jaw, slipping a hand under the hem of Grizz’s t-shirt and this is so much fucking better than that night on the couch because Sam is all _his._ His hands come around to cup Sam’s ass, and he can feel it, that Sam’s hard even through the layers of his jeans. _I did that,_ Grizz thinks, and _fuck,_ it makes him dizzy.  

They kiss like that, Sam grinding down on him, hands braced on the edge of the mattress behind Grizz’s head for a fucking long time. Grizz doesn’t know how much time passes, but it’s nearly dark when Sam pulls back again.  

“We can stop,” Sam says. “We don’t have to—to do anything tonight, it’s okay. But,” his thumb is moving against Grizz’s hipbone, slow and careful, “tell me what you need.” 

“I don’t—” Grizz says, still feeling dizzy and hot and like his head is full of cotton. “I want to.” 

He’s not really sure what he wants to do, just knows that if Sam and his _hands_ are involved then he’ll agree to pretty much anything.  

Sam nods, smiles a little wickedly, and climbs up onto Grizz’s bed. The bed where he slept for seventeen years, where he had sleepovers with Luke, where he _jerked off_ for the first time. Sam is laying on his bed, smiling, like a fucking present for Grizz to unwrap and Grizz _wants_. He _wants and wants and wants_. 

Grizz climbs up after Sam. He places his arms on either side of Sam’s head, slides a knee in between his legs. Sam is looking up at him, smiling, and then he’s fingering the hem of Grizz’s sweatshirt.  

“You’re wearing too many clothes,” Sam says petulantly. 

“Could say the same for you, sweetheart,” he replies, and it’s not like he _means_ to use the pet-name, it kind of just slips out. He calls Luke sweetheart when they’re fighting, says it to Allie when they’re trading sarcastic remarks, but it hits differently in this situation. Sam just smiles wider, reaches up to slide Grizz’s sweatshirt off, revealing the black t-shirt he’s wearing underneath. 

“Are you fucking kidding me,” Sam mutters, moving to take it off also, but Grizz pushes him down, grabs his wrists and presses them into the mattress. 

“You’re mouthy in bed, you know that?” Grizz says, feeling brazen, in control. He’s drunk on it. “My turn.” 

Sam smirks at him because he’s a fucking _tease,_ and Grizz kisses him, hard and hungry, overcome with the need to be _closer_ . He moves down, pushes Sam’s shirt up so he can suck on the skin right above his hip bone, and Sam is making these _sounds_ , under him, quiet and breathy, and Grizz hikes his shirt up further, the fabric just as soft as he thought it would be, and then he sees it.  

There’s a mark on Sam’s skin, starting on the side of his hip and continuing, Grizz presumes, to wrap around to the dimple of his back. It’s something written hastily, and Grizz can’t really read it because it’s dark here and most of the mark is pressed into the mattress. But he knows what it is.  

Sam has a soulmate.  

 _Of course_ _he fucking has a soulmate,_ Grizz thinks. It’s not like he ignored the possibility (the _probability of 100 fucking percent_ ) that Sam has his soul mark, but, well, he just didn't let himself think about it. Because thinking about things makes them real, gives them control over you, and if he didn’t think about it then maybe it would never be a problem. It's naive and stupid and fucking childish, but Grizz didn't know what else to  _do._

It’s not that he’s angry that Sam _has_ a soulmate. Grizz is angry that Sam has a soulmate, and it’s not him.  

Grizz looks down at Sam, spread out beneath him, vulnerable because he's allowing Grizz to be in control right now. Except Grizz isn’t in control. Those words on Sam’s back are, twisting and pulling at Grizz until he lets go of Sam’s hands, until he’s stood up and walked to the other side of the room.  

Grizz shouldn’t be doing this because Sam has a soulmate somewhere, maybe even here in New Ham. Sam has someone’s words scrawled on his body, and if Grizz doesn’t stop doing this—doesn't stop touching him—he's going to see them. Sam isn’t his. Sam doesn’t belong to him. 

“Grizz?” Sam asks unsteadily, leaning up on his elbows. “Are you okay? We don’t have to—” 

Grizz runs a hand through his hair, tries to stop his heart from beating so fast. He feels disgusting, wants to take a shower because he feels _dirty_. He catches himself staring at his hands, replaying how his fingers looked against the mark on Sam’s side. 

“Grizz, just—just come back to bed,” Sam says again, and Grizz can’t fucking _do_ this because Sam is so earnest, sounds like he _cares_ about him but Sam can’t care about him because he isn’t his soulmate. Grizz is a hookup. A way to pass the time. No one fucking gets to _take care_  of him.  

This isn’t just _messing around_ for Grizz . He doesn’t think it ever could be. This is Grizz’s fucking _life_ , a nightmare that’s just going to keep going and going and _going_ because there’s no one like him, no one who understands him in this whole fucking world. 

“Come back to bed,” Sam says, softer this time, and it makes Grizz  _ache_ . He can’t be what Sam wants him to be, and Sam can’t gi ve Grizz what he needs. But Grizz is tired, feels like he’s run a hundred plays, knocked down over and over, like someone is standing on his chest. He’s tired and he’s _weak_ and his dad was fucking right.  

Grizz turns back around, smiles at Sam. He looks so confused, so hurt, and Grizz put that look there. But Grizz can deal with that tomorrow, can figure out how to get out of this before he hurts Sam any more than he has to because Grizz is a fucking time-bomb, and he’s set to go off any day now.  

He climbs back onto the bed, slips under the covers without saying a word. Sam reaches over and turns off the lamp next to them before joining Grizz. Grizz has one arm thrown up over his head, staring at the ceiling, and Sam settles into his side, under the crook of his shoulder. Grizz leans into him, presses closer even though he _knows_ he can’t.  

“It’s okay,” Sam says, mumbling into his shoulder. “We don’t have to. We have time.” 

Grizz just brings his arm down, pulls Sam against his chest, thinks he can feel his heartbeat through the thin material of his shirt.

 _I have all the time in the world,_ Grizz thinks, closing his eyes, _but someone is waiting on you._  


	4. four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wow... so the canon show timeline??? it’s gone. this chapter is the most non-compliant because i felt like interrupting their relationship with the birth of becca’s baby so early wouldn't fit. let's pretend that everyone gets sick at some vague celebration dinner rather than thanksgiving.
> 
> you guys thought that this would be the last chapter??? guess we were all wrong!! i'm too in love with these characters to rush through it, so we're extending the length again. here are 8,000 words to make up for how horrible of an updater i am!! i know a lot of you will be veryyyyyy angry...... but it's not the end my friends. the last chapter will resolve all of your fears. i swear it will be a longggg, happy ending!!! 
> 
> love you guys!! happy reading.

Grizz wakes up, and he can’t remember where he is. The curtains are drawn, but the light is filtering through, and Grizz feels like he’s looking up from the bottom of the ocean, wet and drowning and scared. His head is throbbing, a low pulsing pain between his ears, and he’s shaking. His back is pressed up against someone’s chest, their hands carding through his hair. He pulls away, quickly, and his muscles ache in protest. Grizz slumps forward, presses his hands to his eyes so he can’t see because the light hurts and everything aches and he doesn’t know _where the fuck he is_.

“You were having a nightmare,” they say, voice soft and muted behind him. Like they’re being careful. Like they think Grizz is going to break. They reach a hand out, touch his shoulder lightly.

“Don’t,” Grizz says, “don’t fucking _touch_ me,” but the hand doesn’t stop, just keeps pressing into his shirt. The way they touch him, gentle and kind, makes him fume, makes him _scared_. “What do you not understand about the word no,” Grizz says, wrenching his body around, wrapping his fingers around the person’s wrist to rip their hand off and _Oh_ —

Of course, Sam wouldn’t take his hand off because Grizz had his back turned, because Sam couldn’t see his mouth form the words. Because Sam is deaf and Grizz is a fucking idiot who can’t do this right. Grizz is thankful for small mercies, that Sam will never hear what Grizz just said because the words were mean and _bad_ and Sam doesn’t deserve that.

“I’m sorry,” Grizz says, loosening his grasp and letting Sam’s hand fall. He shakes his head, pulling his legs up to his chest, bunching the sheets in his fists. “I’m really sorry. I—I have nightmares sometimes, not _that_ often, it’s not like a big deal or anything, it’s just a few nights a week... yeah.”

Sam cocks his head to the side like he’s studying Grizz. His lips press together in a thin line, and _Yep, nope_ , Grizz knows that look from dozens of family dinners where he brought back 98’s in English instead of touchdowns at Friday’s game and he’s not having Sam look at him like his dad used to because it’s too fucking cliché.

“You don’t need to worry about it,” he says, looking Sam in the eyes. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

Sam nods seriously, bites his tongue between his teeth, and then his face breaks out into a smile. “What if I want to worry about you?”

Grizz stops fidgeting with the sheets, looks up at Sam with his eyes wide. “What,” he says, more of a statement than a question.

“I want to worry about you,” Sam says slowly, still smiling, “because I _like_ you, Grizz.”

Grizz can’t help it, then, when he smiles, his lips turning up against his will. His face is warm, he knows he’s blushing, and his chest feels hot and open, a mix of being so caught off guard and simultaneously so fucking happy. “You can’t — you can’t just _say things_ like that.”

“Why not,” Sam challenges, shifting closer to Grizz, putting a hand on his cheek. “It’s true. I like you,” his thumb grazes Grizz’s cheekbone, “ _a lot_.”

“I like you too,” Grizz says, the words falling out before he can think about them. He’s flustered and smiling and he wonders how he got this lucky, how he’s managed to find something that likes him and strokes his hair when he has nightmares and wants to get drunk with him and see his garden. _Is this what high school was like for everyone else?_ Grizz wonders.  _Is this how a crush was supposed to feel?_

“Good,” Sam replies. “I was hoping you liked me because if not, last night would’ve been pretty awkward.”

Grizz tenses up at that, remembers how he pulled away from Sam when he saw the mark, how he couldn’t form any words because his throat closed up. “I’m sorry—”

“Don’t,” Sam says with a note of finality, and his fingers stop moving on Grizz’s face, just hold him there, “don’t apologize. I like you, whether we kiss or make out or we don’t. I like _you_ , whatever that comes with.”

Grizz huffs out a small laugh, and he lets himself forget, just for a second, who is he, _what_ he is. He forgets, places a hand on Sam’s waist, and pulls him forward until their faces almost touch.

“Can I kiss you?” Grizz asks, eyes half-open, dizzy on this feeling.

Sam leans forward, and his lips brush across Grizz’s for a moment before he pulls away. That wicked look in his eye is back, sharp and a little precocious. It sets Grizz’s blood _singing_.

“I’ll kiss you after you brush your teeth,” Sam says, patting Grizz’s cheek lightly. “Now go take a shower. You smell like a high-school boy.”

“I am a high-school boy,” Grizz mumbles, extricating himself from the mess of blankets on the bed. He sways when he tries to stand up and remembers just how much he drank last night. He doesn’t really drink as much now, too keyed up to give up as much control as he used to. Some people like to get wasted every night here in New Ham, maybe ‘cause it makes it hurt less. Grizz doesn’t, though, because the feeling never lasts. He doesn’t think about the metaphorical implications of him getting drunk with Sam, letting himself lose control like he did. _The unexamined life is not worth living?_ Fuck it.

Grizz strips off his t-shirt on the way to the hallway bathroom then turns around before leaving the room. He braces his hands on the frame, leans forward and grins.

“Wanna come with me?” he asks, quirking his eyebrows. He watches Sam’s eyes rake over his chest, a blush already blooming across his pale skin. Sam is confident and a little bit cocky but he’s also a hormonal teenager, and, _well_ , Grizz knows how to use that to his advantage.

“In your dreams,” Sam says, throwing a pillow at Grizz and letting himself fall back onto the bed. “I’m going back to sleep.”

Grizz laughs, bends down to pick up the pillow and tosses it back onto the bed. He hears a muffled _Fuck off_ come from somewhere in the blankets, and it just makes Grizz smile even wider.

Later, when he’s standing in front of the mirror after his shower, Grizz forces himself to think about it for just a minute. The glass is foggy, and his figure is blurred in the reflection, but he knows what he’s looking at— broad expanses of toned, bare skin, unmistakably empty. On bad days he used to think about putting words there himself, painting or tattooing or carving them in so maybe he could trick someone (trick _himself_ ) into believing they were meant to be. On good days he likes it, likes that he’s a blank canvas, a story waiting to be told.

This isn't a good day or a bad day. It’s something new and dangerous and exciting that Grizz doesn't know the name of yet. He runs a hand over his arms, over the lines of his veins, down his chest, _lower_. He thinks of how Sam is waiting just down the hallway, lying in Grizz’s bed because he wants to be there. Sam said he likes Grizz, likes _whatever that comes with._ Grizz knows that he’s making a mistake, knows that this is temporary and impossible and probably isn’t even real because they’re living in some fake Matrix-simulation, but whatever, it’s _his_.

He thinks about eyes blue as the fucking sky and the stark contrast of red hair against his sheets and the sounds Sam made last night when he pressed him into the mattress and he wraps a hand around himself and comes with the porcelain of the sink biting into his palm. If Grizz feels a little guilty afterward, a twinge of pain in his chest, a need to scream into the fucking void, well, he doesn’t notice it. Because there’s a boy waiting in Grizz’s bed, a boy that wants to kiss him, and _really_ , Grizz isn’t going to pass that up.  


***

 

Grizz doesn’t know how Sam does it, how he disarms Grizz, makes him dizzy and wipes the thoughts out of his brain. Grizz means to bring up the soulmarks (or lack thereof), _really_. It’s not like he’s avoiding the conversation, but things between him and Sam are so _fucking good_ after the night of Thanksgiving that he doesn’t want to do anything that might jeopardize that.

Even if he tried, Grizz probably couldn’t get the words out because Sam is always distracting him, smiling surreptitiously and pulling Grizz away into dark hallways during assemblies at the church and doing that thing with his tongue and sneaking his hands where they really shouldn’t be because _Sam, stop, this is family movie night._

Things between them are good. _Really good._ So fucking good that it scares Grizz because he feels like Sam and he fell into step so easily that he’s not sure how he’d go back to being without him. It’s really stupid and unhealthy and Grizz knows _okay_ , but they get to play by different rules in this universe. They get to fall in love (or like or whatever, they’re not putting labels on it) hard and fast and get in over their heads. They get to be teenagers.

Being with Sam makes Grizz feels like a teenager again. They hold hands and make out for hours and they raid the bookstore on Main and read shitty murder-mystery novels to each other while sipping thermoses of coffee they stole from the dining hall and they sneak around even though they don't really need to. It makes Grizz feel so fucking stupid and young. He doesn’t have to think about rations or criminal trials or governing his _classmates_ , doesn’t have to think about fucking _anything_ because that’s how easy it is.

The ironic thing about being in New Ham, though, is that they have the freedom to do absolutely anything they want but there’s really not a whole to do. Alcohol supplies are getting alarmingly low, so parties aren’t really a viable option for entertainment unless you want to go sober and _really, what’s the point, then?_ The movie theater’s abandoned, along with the bowling alley and ice-cream shop and the one nice Italian restaurant people would go to before Prom. It’s getting too cold to have football skirmishes outside, and Grizz knows that this winter’s going to be a bitch if they don’t figure out a way to alleviate the cabin-fever they’re all developing.

"I need to get a haircut,” Grizz says, pushing his bangs (yeah, his hair is so long he has _bangs_ now) out of his face.

“Did you say something?” Sam asks, lifting his head off Grizz’s chest and propping his head on his hand. At Grizz’s confused look he continues, “I felt your chest move.”

“Oh, not really,” Grizz replies, looking down at Sam, “just thinking about getting my hair cut.”

Sam frowns dramatically. “I like your hair.”

“Why?” Grizz asks. “’Cause it makes me look like a girl? You into that?”

Sam hums, shaking his head. “Nope. I am, sadly, one hundred percent gay.”

“Too bad for all of the girls of New Ham,” Grizz replies, smiling. “Good news for me, though.”

Sam grins at him, leans up and presses a kiss to Grizz’s lips. They kiss for a while, slow and long because today is Sunday and they can do whatever they fucking want. The rest of the house is out at a craft day that Kelly planned, and, really, can you see how desperate they’re getting? When Grizz asked Allie if it was okay that he skip out on today, started giving excuses about somewhere he needed to go, she just laughed, bright and loud.

“Grizz, do whatever you want,” she said, “It’s the end of the goddamn _world_.”

So, they spend Sunday in Grizz’s makeshift bedroom at Allie’s. They open the curtains and plug Sam’s phone into a shitty speaker. Grizz has to get up to change the music more than once because, _Sam, I’m not kissing you while we listen to—what is this shit? Sam, oh my_ god _, I thought we talked about Depeche Mode_.

Grizz doesn’t try to take Sam’s shirt off, and Sam doesn’t say anything because he thinks he’s being nice. Sam thinks that he’s being patient and kind and waiting for Grizz because he’s some closet-case with a deep, Freudian fear of the male sex. Grizz lets him believe that because it’s a lot easier than explaining the truth.

“How do you say... shirt?” Grizz asks.

Sam takes Grizz’s right hand and moves his fingers so the tip of his pointer rests on his thumb. He brings the hand up Grizz’s chest and then moves it down. “Shirt,” Sam says as he repeats the motion.

“What about, uh, elevator?”

Sam rearranges Grizz’s fingers into the letter _e_ , places against his open palm and then moves it up. “Elevator.”

“What about fuck.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “I’m not teaching you profanity,” he replies, sighing, “Plus I know you already looked up all the curse words in ASL.”

“You know me too well,” Grizz says.

“Unfortunately.”

Grizz mimics offense, bringing a hand up to his chest and gasping. “If you weren’t the only gay person I know, wow, I’d be outta here.”

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t catch that. You want to repeat it?” Sam says, challenging Grizz because he’s mouthy as _shit_.

“Read my lips: you’re a tease,” Grizz replies, and he closes his mouth over Sam’s before he can reply. He’s halfway down Sam’s neck, sucking a bruise into his skin, when the door opens and then promptly shuts a few seconds later.

“Sorry!” the voice says from the other side of doors, and _Of course, it’s Allie_ who walks in on them. “I’ll uh— I'll knock next time? Grizz, can you come find me after—you know what, don't worry about it, I’ll—”

“Goodbye Allie,” Grizz says loudly so she can hear him through the door. “I’ll talk to you _later_.”

“Right, okay,” she says, and then there’s silence which Grizz hopes means she’s left.

“Sorry,” Grizz says, turning to look back at Sam.

“What happened?” Sam asks, eyebrows drawn together in confusion.

“Allie walked in. She—uh, she saw us.”

Sam opens his mouth, then closes it. Grizz is hovering over him, braced on his elbows, and his hair is falling into his face. Sam pushes it back behind his ear and peers up at him. “Is that okay? That she saw us?”

“Yeah,” Grizz replies, “Allie is—she's cool. I mean, I’m not out or anything, but I don’t really know what being out even looks like here. But, yeah, Allie is fine. We’re friends, I think.”

“Friends with the mayor... impressive.”

Grizz nods. “You have a boyfriend in high places,” he says and then immediately thinks, _Oh fuck_ and pulls back so he’s not touching Sam. “That’s not—that’s not what I meant to say. I know we’re not, like, putting labels on anything or—”

“I don’t know, I kind of like boyfriends,” Sam says, shrugging halfheartedly before he starts to grin. He brings his right hand up and closes it like a he’s making a speaking motion, then crosses the pointer fingers of both his hands. “Boyfriend.”

“Boyfriend,” Grizz says, raising his eyebrows. “It might take me a while to learn that one.”

“That’s okay,” Sam replies. “You have a _really_ good teacher.”

 

***

 

So, Allie knows. Grizz knows he needs to go downstairs and talk to her because this isn’t one of those things he can just ignore (not like the soulmate-issue _is_ something he can ignore, but, whatever). Allie needs to trust Grizz because Grizz is the one who carries a gun in the back of his pants and stands in front of her door three nights a week. Allie needs to trust him because it’s fucking life or death.

He forces himself out of bed a few minutes after Allie interrupts them. They walk downstairs together, and Sam slips out the door with a knowing smile on his face. _You’re fucked,_ he signs, and _yeah,_ Grizz understands that one without Sam mouthing the words.

Grizz shuffles into the kitchen where he knows Allie is probably making a cup of tea. It’s _not_ a walk of shame, okay? He’s just embarrassed.

“Where’s everyone else?” he asks as he folds himself into one of the chairs at the table. Grizz is, apparently, too tall for furniture made for the average family. His knees knock into the table, and he pushes himself back so he can stretch his legs out.

“They’re still at the church. I was tired, so I came back early.”

Grizz can hear the hollow metallic _clink_ that Allie’s spoon makes as she stirs the tea in her mug. Her back is to him—it makes him nervous—but when she turns around, she’s grinning.

He shakes his head and lets out a laugh. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” she asks innocently, bracing her hands on the counter and pulling herself up so she’s leaning against the cabinets. She sips at her tea, then makes a face.

“Stale?” Grizz asks.

“Needs some milk,” she sighs wistfully, bringing the cup down to rest on her lap. She looks pretty like this, her hair slipping from the messy knot she had it pulled back in. Grizz doesn’t love Allie like _that_ , but he can understand why someone would. He hopes so, at least—that someone loves her like that.

“I would throw someone down for some milk right now. Like, fucking colosseum style.”

Allie rolls her eyes. “Right, Grizz, because you’re so prone to violence.”

He throws up his hands dramatically. “You’ve never seen me so calcium deficient, dude. I might hulk-out on you.”

“Uh-huh, well, keep up that energy. We might need it with all the shit Campbell’s been up to lately.” Allie takes another sip from the mug, but she doesn’t break eye contact with Grizz.

“What do you mean? What is—what has Campbell been doing?” he asks.

She kicks her legs up, swinging them forward and backward while sitting on the counter. “Oh you know, the usual—riling up the disenfranchised outcast kids, interrupting meetings, slipping drugs to Harry, I think.” Her voice breaks on the last part, and it makes Grizz’s chest tight.

“Shit, Allie, I didn’t—I haven’t been around much lately,” he finishes lamely, not really knowing what else to say.

“Yeah, you haven’t,” Allie says, more concerned than judgmental. When she speaks next, her voice is quiet and calm but there’s an edge under it that he’s noticed more and more often. It’s the worst ( _best_ ) combination of Mayor-Allie-who-will-destroy-anything-remotely-weak and friend-Allie-who-will-destroy-anything-that-thinks-you’re-weak. “What are you doing, Grizz?”

“I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about,” Grizz says carefully, lowering his eyes to where his hands are loosely clasped in his lap. He knows if he looks up Allie’s eyes will probably be staring into his fucking _soul._

“Grizz,” she repeats, and this time it sounds more like a warning. “I need to be able to trust you. You don’t have to tell me what’s happening between you and him, but I need to know that your head is—”

“ _Sam_ and I are fine,” Grizz replies. “We’re great, actually, so you really don’t need to worry about what’s going on between us.”

“Does he know?” she asks.

Grizz doesn’t say anything because he can’t fucking breath. He realizes that his hands are clenched into fists, and he’s _angry_. “Does he know what?”

When Allie looks at him next it’s _scathing_. “Don’t fucking play dumb with me, Grizz. Does he know?”

Grizz stands up, pushing back from his chair. It scrapes against the floor, a whine that makes his head ache. “No, okay! He doesn’t fucking know! Because I don’t know how to tell him, and I know that when I do, he won’t want me anymore. He won’t fucking _want me_ and I don’t know how to go back to being alone again _._ ”

His voice breaks, and Grizz doesn’t realize he’s crying until Allie slips off the counter and brushes a tear away with her thumb. “Grizz,” she says softly.

He doesn’t move, just stands there with his hands clenched at his sides and sucks in breaths, small and sharp. Allie runs a hand through his hair, pulls his head onto her shoulder because she’s so much smaller than him, and it reminds him of his mom so much that he thinks his chest is tearing in two.

“I don’t—I don’t know what I’m doing, Allie,” he says after a while. The words are choked out, halting. “You know he was the first boy I kissed? He’s my first everything, and I think he really likes me, Al. I really like him too. It feels, I don’t know, _right_ between us. Like we fit.”

Allie pulls back. “Like how a soulmate would feel?”

The words punch into him, hard and swift. “Yeah… yeah, I guess maybe that’s how it would feel,” he steps back, runs a hand through his hair. “Fuck, I don’t know. Isn’t this how it always feels, the first time you kind of fall in love? I mean, even if—even if I really like him, I’m not his soulmate. Sam might be _it_ for me, you know, but I’m not it for him.”

“You don’t _know_ that, Grizz. Maybe he doesn’t have a mark either and—”

“He does,” Grizz cuts her off. “I’ve seen it.”

Allie’s eyes widen in surprise. “Okay… and he didn’t say anything about it? Don’t you think that’s a little weird? That he, you know, has a soulmate and he’s still fooling around with you?”

“No, he wouldn’t do that,” Grizz replies quickly. “Sam isn’t like that. Maybe he already met his soulmate and something happened to them or he’s talked to everyone here in New Ham so he knows he has to wait until we get back home or maybe, I don’t fucking know, maybe it’s—”

Allie shakes her head and leans against the counter with her arms crossed. The sun is starting to go down, a slice of golden light splintering through the blinds in the kitchen window, and it scatters against her face. “You’ll never know until you ask. Or, until you tell him.”

“I’m not telling him,” Grizz says adamantly.

“You know he’s probably already wondering. It’s only a matter of time before he asks.”

Grizz _knows,_ okay? Everything that Allie is saying, he’s already played through in his head a hundred fucking times after Sam has fallen asleep against his side. “It’s fucked up, okay? That someone else— _something_ else—gets to decide who we love, and there’s not a goddamn thing we can do about it. I like him and he likes me, why isn’t that enough?”

“We both know that’s not how it works,” she says. “But you deserve to be happy, Grizz. He does, too, right? The longer you keep this going, the more it’s going to hurt when it ends. Both of us know how this ends. It’s fucked up and it’s not fair, but it’s what we have. We play the cards we’re dealt, and a lot of us got a pretty shit hand. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

“I know,” Grizz says softly because she’s _right_  because there’s only one way that this ends for people like him. “I know.”

Allie pauses for a moment and then walks to the kitchen counter. She picks up the mug and rinses it out, her back to him. “Talk to Gordie, okay?”

“Why? It won’t make any difference. It’s not like he can science me a soulmark.”

Allie doesn’t turn around, just looks down where her hands are grasping the rim of the sink. “He can’t fix it, but maybe he might have an explanation. It’s not everything, I know, but maybe it will help if you understand why it’s happening.”

Grizz nods because he can tell Allie’s really _trying_. She’s trying to help him because that’s what she does. Because they’re friends. “Thanks, Allie. I’ll—I’ll do it. I promise.”

She finally turns around and smiles. “For me?”

Grizz laughs, feels his chest loosen a little bit because Allie’s not mad at him. “Anything for you.”

 

***

 

Grizz is valiantily trying _to_ stay awake when Gordie stumbles down the front steps of the house.

“Shit,” he mumbles when he runs into Grizz’s back. “It’s dark already, Grizz, what are you doing out here?”

Grizz coughs and turns his head to face Gordie. He can’t make out his face in the dark, but he recognizes the slouchy sweater and his voice. “Guard duty.”

Grizz thinks Gordie’s probably raising an eyebrow at that because it’s like, 10 fucking degrees outside once the sun goes down. “And you have to be outside, why?”

“The devil prowls around like a roaring lion waiting for someone to devour,” Grizz quotes absentmindedly, and _yeah_ , it’s too cold for him to be out here and he’s pretty sleep deprived because he spends all his time with Sam now and he really should eat something because he’s pretty much been living on black coffee and Cheez-its. “Plus, I think Allie’s mad at me.”

“Ah,” Gordie responds knowingly, “So you pulled the short straw and got on Campbell-watch.”

“Pretty much,” Grizz says, popping the _p_. He can’t really feel it because his lips are numb, though, so maybe it isn’t having the effect he intended. “Where are you going?”

“The park. It’s a clear night out— thought I could take a look at the sky.”

“Can I come?” Grizz asks abruptly. “Shift changes in a few minutes and I could uh, help carry the telescope or something?”

Gordie laughs and sits down on the step beside Grizz. “Whatever you say, dude.”

 

***

 

“Okay, so the Big Dipper should be right about… here, okay,” Gordie says, adjusting something on the telescope that Grizz doesn’t follow. Gordie steps back and motions for Grizz to look through it. “Take a look.”

Grizz brushes his hair out of his face and presses an eye to the lens. The sky is a deep, pulsing blue, with the starts just pinpricks of white. Grizz thinks it looks like someone threw a blanket over the sun, like it’s wearing thin and the light is starting to poke through, starting to burrow and scratch and claw its way out. He picks out a cluster of stars nestled close together in the bottom of the viewer. 

“Is that it? The four stars at the right?”

He hears Gordie shift behind him, his feet crunching on the leaves that litter the ground. “No, uh, you’re probably looking at Corvus.”

Grizz hums absently, eyes still sweeping across the constellations.

“Corvus means raven in Latin. According to Greek mythology, Apollo had a white bird that he would send to watch over his lovers. He sent it to watch over a woman he loved who lived far away, but she was tired of waiting for Apollo to return and had fallen in love with a human.” Grizz doesn’t step back from the telescope, but his eyes won’t focus on anything he’s seeing. Gordie keeps going, “The raven went back to tell Apollo, and when he did, Apollo was so furious he set it on fire and turned its feathers black. That’s why all ravens have black feathers.”

“The Greeks knew how to tell a story,” Grizz says, pulling back and turning to look at Gordie. _He looks like a raven_ , Grizz thinks, _all jet black hair, small bones._ “Do you know if uh—if they ever wrote anything on unusual soulmarks?”

Gordie’s eyebrows knit together. “Sure, I mean, a lot of people are familiar with the Zeus story. You know, the one-soul eights-limbs, cut in half and separated thing. There are versions where it goes wrong—multiple soulmates or people who have soulmates they never meet or soulmarks in different languages. But, I mean, you probably know more about that stuff than I do with how much you read and all.”

Grizz nods and lets out a short, hollow laugh. “Yeah, I guess I probably do…” He pauses for a moment and inhales. “Do you think that’s there a scientific explanation for someone not having a soulmark?”

Gordie cocks his head to the side and studies Grizz. “Well, I mean, there’s a small percentage of people born without them, but they always appear in early adolescence.”

“No, I don’t mean that,” Grizz replies, shaking his head. “I mean someone who _never_ gets a soulmark.”

Gordie eyes him warily. “I’ve never heard of anything like that. Granted, I’m more into physics and shit than biology, but I’ve never even come across a story of someone without one. It’s just, like, a fact of the universe or something.”

“Right,” Grizz says, lowering his eyes. “Yeah, it’s stupid. I just thought maybe it would be interesting, I don’t know.”

It doesn’t seem like Gordie is listening though because he just keeps talking, interrupting Grizz. “I mean, it would be fascinating to study. The rules—you know the ‘facts of the universe’—they’re different now. I mean, the moon moves too fast and the stars aren’t always where they belong and maybe people here won’t have soulmates anymore. Or maybe soulmarks could take on a different form, could be in a new language or something. You know, know that I’m thinking about it there’s actually—”

Grizz’s head snaps up. “A different form? What do you mean by that?”

“Oh, uh, I’m not sure,” Gordie says. “Just that maybe they don’t always _have_ to be words. I don’t know what that would look like, but—”

“Nah it’s cool, man,” Grizz says, shaking his head, and he’s smiling and his chest feels like it’s so fucking wide open and for the first time, it feels like maybe there’s an _answer_. That maybe he isn’t fucked up or incomplete. That maybe he’s just _different_ , and being different is good, right?  That’s what they always taught him in school and pretty much what every single X-Men comic he read during elementary-school lunch were about.

“Different,” he says slowly, feeling his mouth form around the word. It tastes good, like completing a pass when he knows his dad is watching or getting an essay back with a 100% even though he hasn’t gotten anything less since freshman bio (and  _maybe_ Grizz was categorized as a genius when they took that school-wide I.Q. test in 8thgrade, but it’s not a _big_ deal). “Show me some more stars, dude.”

“Sure,” Gordie says a little unsteadily, probably taken aback by Grizz’s sudden change in mood but he can’t fucking help it.

Grizz leans against the side of the gazebo, crosses his arms, and squints into the sky while Gordie rambles on. He doesn’t pay attention, can’t really, because every constellation looks like it was placed there for him, a mark in the sky, deliberate and meaningful, written in a language only he knows how to speak. _Different,_ he thinks, _I can get fucking used to that._

 

***

 

They’re in bed again because, seriously, there is _nothing_ to do in this town.

“Did you ever notice me before?” Sam asks. He’s laying on his stomach, his right arm draped across Grizz’s chest, fingers tracing lazy circles on his skin.

“Yeah of course,” he says. Grizz looks down at Sam, eyes the way their skin looks pressed this close together. He likes Sam’s freckles, like, _really likes_ them (which he hasn’t failed to tell him about a million times because it makes Sam blush.) “That’s why I stayed away.”

Sam looks at him sternly and hits his chest. “Why?”

“’Cause I was caught up in being straight,” he replies. It’s not the whole truth, but he hopes it enough of it for now. If he’s being honest, the problem of his burgeoning sexuality was pretty much always eclipsed by the fact that even if he did like boys, there wasn’t one out there meant for him. 

Sam tucks his head into Grizz’s neck, breath warm on his skin. He lays there for a few seconds, then mumbles, “You were very convincing.” His fingers tap lightly against Grizz’s chest when he signs the words.

Grizz tips his head back and looks up at the ceiling. It’s that popcorn shit that his dad always said he was going to replace before they moved out after Grizz’s graduation. Grizz taps on Sam’s shoulder to get him to look up. “Not to my mom. She noticed early. I really loved tap dancing, so, uh, she signed me up for peewee football.”

Sam offers a small smile. “She thought she was making your life easier.”

“Yeah,” Grizz replies. He doesn’t like telling this story. Grizz likes football and shot-gunning beers with Luke, and he also likes reading Beat poetry and kissing Sam and tap dancing. Sometimes he feels like there are two people inside him, pressed right up against each other under his skin, and he doesn’t know which one is really him, doesn’t know if he can be both.  “Somewhere there’s a picture of me in that tap class with a feather boa.”

Sam’s eyes crinkle when he laughs. “I need to see that picture.”

Grizz shifts on his back, angles his shoulder so he’s really looking at Sam. “I was always really good at football, so it was easy—just to be like my friends,” he swallows, pauses for a second because he doesn’t really know how to say this. “I sort of feel like I’m twelve years old again. I’m starting over. Is that—is that weird?”

Sam’s eyes are on him, bright and sparkling. It reminds Grizz of the reflecting pool in D.C. They made it to the regional competition the one year that Grizz joined the debate team, and before the competition, they all walked down the National Mall. It was a clear day, the sun beating down, and the water looked like it went on forever, an endless mirror of the sky that he could fall through. That’s how he feels when Sam looks at him, like fucking Alice in Wonderland.

“It’s not weird,” Sam says.

“No? Like I should send a note or something—‘Dear Sam do you like Grizz? Yes or no.’” He signs the last two words, and he thinks of how his fingers fold down on the word _No,_ like the mouth of an alligator snapping shut.

“You have to ask?” Sam says. He’s grinning like it’s a joke, but Grizz thinks _(knows_ ) that there’s a note of uncertainty under it. Because they sleep together and kiss and Grizz let Sam take his shirt off tonight because it wasn’t fucking enough to just touch him through it. He wants more of Sam every time they do this, is willing to sacrifice everything little by little. Sam’s taking him apart like he’s picking a lock, undoing him.

Sam doesn’t say anything else, just laces their fingers together and moves up to bring their lips together. Grizz tangles a hand in his hair, pulls him closer. They both haven’t shaved in a few days, too lazy to do anything except for shower and drink coffee and kiss. The stubble on Sam’s cheek rasps against Grizz’s hand where it’s grasping Sam’s chin. He wonders if it would be like this if they woke up together every day. The words _forever_ and  _home_ and _married_ run through his brain like fish swimming upstream through the currents, and he can’t afford to think like that. It’s been, what, three weeks? He doesn’t love Sam, he’s not _in love_ with Sam.

Sam shifts so he’s on top of Grizz, his legs bracketing Grizz’s waist. Sam looks at him, and it’s so fucking _fond_ that it makes Grizz’s chest ache. _He’s looking at you,_ Grizz thinks. _He sees you._

Sam wraps his fingers around Grizz’s wrist, brings his hand up so it’s resting on Sam’s chest, right over where his heart is. Grizz can feel it beating, pulsing under the expanse of his skin. Grizz doesn’t move, can’t fucking speak. Sam just looks down, pushes Grizz’s hand against his chest twice, and then speaks.

“Yours.” Sam’s voice is quiet and thick and raw. He doesn’t look up at Grizz, instead taking Grizz’s hand and moving down to his side. The skin there is warm and soft. “Yours.”

Grizz just stares at Sam, breath coming out in short, choked beats. Grizz knows what his hand is laying on top of, how his palm is covering those words, small and black. Unmistakable. He always imagined it would burn when he touched them, that it would feel like a carving in his skin, like any he’d place his fingers in the wound like doubting Thomas—but it doesn’t. It’s the same as the rest of Sam’s skin, smooth and pale.

“No,” Grizz says, pulling his hand away. His voice is shaking, thick with fear. “No, I’m not—you’re not mine.”

Sam pulls back, his eyes going wide. _Like fucking Bambi,_ Grizz thinks. “I don’t—I don’t understand. Grizz, I thought—”

“You’re not mine,” he says again, pulling himself out so he’s not under Sam anymore. He leans against the headboard, brings his knees up to his chest, and wraps his arms around himself. “You’re not mine, Sam.”

“Grizz,” Sam says, reaching a hand out towards him, but Grizz recoils away.

“I don’t have a soulmark.” The words come out fast, and they punch through the room so there’s no more air to breathe. “I was born without one, and I’m eighteen so, you know, I’m never going to get one.” Sam opens his mouth like he’s about to speak, but Grizz stops him before he can. “I know I should have told you. It’s not fair that I—that I started this _thing_ with you knowing that you don’t belong to me. I just—it’s really fucking hard. You don’t know how bad it gets, Sam.”

His voice breaks, but he doesn’t start crying. Grizz doesn’t think he can cry anymore because it never fucking _helps,_ because it won’t change anything. He pushes his head between his knees, breaths deeply to try to stop himself from shaking.

“I’m sorry,” he says even though he knows Sam can’t see him say it. “I’m so fucking sorry, Sam.”

Sam moves up the bed, puts his hand on Grizz’s knee. “Grizz, just fucking look at me. You’re not _listening_ to me.” His voice is urgent, insistent.

Grizz pulls his head up. He doesn’t want to look at Sam, doesn’t want to do anything except for close his eyes and go to sleep, but he knows if he doesn't do this now, he'll never do it. “Gordie says there might be an explanation for it. He thinks that maybe there’s a reason I don’t have one.”

Sam shakes his head, and there’s something in his eyes that Grizz doesn’t like. “An explanation? For what, Grizz? I thought that we were— I thought that you understood.”

“I do understand,” Grizz says, and he wonders if his voice has always sounded this empty. “I understand that you have a soulmate somewhere and for some reason you’re passing the time with me. It’s okay, I get it.”

Sam pulls back from. “Passing the time?” he asks, his voice piercing. Grizz doesn’t think he’s ever seen Sam angry, absentmindedly adds it to the list of secrets that he keeps tucked away in his chest. “You’re not _listening_ to me, Grizz. Look at the fucking soulmark,” he says, and he’s pushing off the bed so he can stand up, stretches himself out in front of Grizz.

“Don’t,” Grizz says, forcing his eyes away to look at the bedspread. He realizes that his fingers are cramping, clenched tight around the fabric. He uncurls them, flexes them once. “That’s not _fair_.”

“Life isn’t fucking fair, Grizz!” Sam shouts. There’s a moment where neither of them speak, the only sound in the room their belabored breathing. “Grizz, just look—”

He’s cut off by the ring of a phone. Grizz knows it isn’t his because Luke set his ringtone to the audio of a Vine that Grizz hasn’t even _seen_ , and the sound right now is the default tone.

“You should get that,” Grizz says slowly, bringing his eyes up to meet Sam’s. He deliberately doesn’t look down at his side—the mark is blurred in the periphery of his vision, pulls his gaze like a fucking magnet.

Sam scoffs and shakes his head. “Okay, Grizz,” he says, voice blank.

Sam crosses the room, rifles through the pockets of his jacket that was thrown haphazardly on the floor. He unlocks it, the blue light shifting on his face. He looks like a strange Picasso, half of his features illuminated and sharp. Grizz leans his head against the headboard and closes his eyes. He’s so fucking _tired._

“Becca’s going into labor.”

 

***

 

Grizz doesn’t really know Becca that well. She was in a lot of his AP classes— _Guess Sam has a type_ —but they only worked on a few group projects together. She’s quiet and whip-smart and kind of terrifies Grizz.

When Grizz sees her at the hospital, her hands braced on either side of the bed, sweat dripping down her forehead, _screaming_ —yeah, it really only reinforces the opinion he had of her. She reminds him of Allie, brave and strong enough to take down pretty much the whole football team. Grizz isn’t surprised that Sam likes her.

“… is that dangerous?” Grizz hears Sam ask, the words a little muffled. Grizz is just around the corner of the door, and he’s _not_ _eavesdropping_ okay.

“I don’t think so,” Becca replies. “I mean, I feel better, so…”

Grizz steels himself, pushes his hands in his pockets and strides through the door. Becca looks up at him, and there are dark circles under her eyes but her gaze is warm.

“Hey Grizz,” she says, smiling softly. He forces out a quiet _Hi_ in reply. “Welcome to the sickbay.”

“Yeah, I came to see how everyone was,” he says, carefully avoiding Sam’s gaze. There are about a dozen people lying in beds around the room—something about food poisoning at a dinner that Sam and he missed. “You’re, uh, pregnant.”

“Yeah,” Becca says, “but Kelly thinks I’ll be okay if I just stay in bed.” Grizz doesn’t really know what Kelly has to do with anything because, last time he checked, she was really only interested in making head cheerleader and keeping Harry from fucking up their shot at Prom royalty. He doesn’t remember her ever expressing interested in medicine, but that doesn’t really matter anymore. Whatever they wanted before is gone—they have to find new things to hope for here.

Grizz glances down to where Sam’s hand is perched on Becca’s knee. He looks away.

“I mean, I’m just following his example,” she continues, gesturing towards Sam. “He was so tired he slept straight through dinner.”

Grizz looks at Sam, finally meets those blue eyes that are boring into him. “Oh, yeah,” he says, playing along and realizing that Becca doesn’t know about them. _Sam never told her,_ he thinks, and he doesn’t know why that hurts him so fucking much. 

Becca keeps talking even though neither of them is looking at her. “We were just talking about names. Do you—do you want to help?”

Grizz tears his eyes away. He blinks and nods hastily. “Uh, yeah, sure.”

“What’s your real name, Grizz?” she asks.

“Gareth.” He hears the word come out of his mouth, but they don’t really register. Everything in the room is a stark white, the fluorescent lights making him dizzy and a little nauseous.  None of this feels real—it’s like he’s fucking sleepwalking.

(He used to wake up in the morning pressed up against his mom’s side even though he knows he went to sleep in his own bed. He would sleepwalk into his parent’s room, just stare at her with his eyes unmoving, and she’d pull him into the bed, try to get him to sleep. His dad only let that happen for a year until he decided Grizz wasn’t a kid anymore. He put a lock on the outside of Grizz’s door, and sometimes he still startles awake with his forehead pressed against the door, his legs aching from standing for hours.)

“I really like that,” Becca says, smiling. She cradles her belly with her hand, circles it absentmindedly. “Do you?”

Sam doesn’t say anything, just grips Becca’s knee tighter. Grizz can see him swallow nervously. They’re not looking at each other anymore. _What a fucking coward,_ Grizz thinks, and he’s not really sure which one of them he’s referring to.

“Okay, well, we have to choose something,” she says, glancing over at Sam. It. hits him them, punches into him like someone has kicked him in the gut. He looks at the way they’re sitting, how she’s angled towards Sam, their posture easy and natural and like they’ve been this close a million times.

“Wait—Sam this is… it’s your baby?” Grizz asks. The words sound fucking _wrong_ because there’s no way that this is Sam’s kid. Sam is _gay_ and Becca is just his friend and there’s no fucking _way_ —

Sam smiles, and it looks like a grimace. He nods, looking away to face Becca. “Yeah.”

“Okay,” Grizz says. “Yeah, okay.”

“We were surprised too,” Becca says.

Grizz doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know how to be in this room right now, feels like bowing over and throwing up. “Wow, um,” his eyes flick over to Sam’s. They’re blue and blue and blue, and he wonders if that look means _I’m sorry._ “Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Becca says. He’s not really listening though, too overwhelmed by the word  _baby_ playing over and over and over. You have sex with people you think are attractive and you mess around with guys you like but—having a baby? You do that with a _soulmate_.

“I’m really happy for you guys,” he says, shaking his head. He can’t really breath, runs a hand over his face, and thinks, _This can’t be fucking happening._ He hears Sam start to speak but he doesn’t stick around to hear it. Grizz rushes out of the room, walks out of the hospital into the night.

The second the doors shut behind him, his legs give out. He slides down against the brick wall, and it’s so fucking _cold_. He’s shaking like he’s drunk too much coffee on an empty stomach or he’s had too much of that weed that Clark buys from the guy who hangs out by the fountain in the park.

He thinks of everyone inside the hospital, sees it in his head: Sam leaning over to place a kiss on Becca’s cheek, putting his hand on the curve of her stomach, the fondness in her eyes. He thinks of them passing the baby around, Kelly and Allie and Will cradling it in their arms.

He doesn’t see himself in any of them. He doesn’t have a place there, doesn’t have a place anywhere. The night and the cold and the winter wrapping around him like a blanket—that’s all he fucking gets.

 _Mine_ , he thinks, closing his eyes. 


End file.
